370 

•S»4 


REESE  LIBRARY 

OK  THK 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 

Deceive  J 


Accessions  No. 


THINGS  OF  THE  MIND 


EDUCATION  AND   THE   HIGHER   LIFE. 

i2tno.    $1.00. 

THINGS  OF  THE  MIND.     iamo.     $1.00. 
MEANS    AND    ENDS    OF    EDUCATION. 

i2mo.    $1.00. 


A.  C.  McCLURG  AND  CO. 
CHICAGO. 


THINGS  OF  THE  MIND 


BY 


J.   L.  SPALDING 


of 


A  genuine  interest  in  problems  of  education  helps  to  keep  us  young, 
for  it  carries  us  back  to  our  own  springtime  and  to  the  company  of  chil- 
dren. It  is  also  an  evidence  that  we  ourselves  have  not  ceased  to  grow, 
and  are  therefore  not  yet  old. 


^ft>\ 

OF  THE  r      \ 

.UNIVERSITY) 
*-i^X 


CHICAGO 
A.  C.  McCLURG  AND   COMPANY 

1895 


,UBS7<5 


COPYRIGHT 
BY  A.  C.  MCCLURG  &  Co, 

A.    D.     1894 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.    VIEWS  OF  EDUCATION 7 

II.  VIEWS  OF  EDUCATION     .......  40 

III.  VIEWS  OF  EDUCATION 66 

IV.  PROFESSIONAL  EDUCATION 94 

V.  THEORIES  OF  LIFE  AND  EDUCATION     .     .  128 

VI.    CULTURE  AND  RELIGION 173 

VII.    PATRIOTISM 220 


THINGS   OF  THE  MIND. 


CHAPTER   I. 

VIEWS    OF    EDUCATION. 

To  be  an  interpreter  and   relater  of  the  best  and  sagest 
things  among  mine  own  citizens.  —  MILTON. 

WHETHER  it  be  beautiful  scenery,  or 
noble  monuments,  or  venerable  ruins, 
or  painting,  or  sculpture,  or  music,  or  books, 
or  contact  with  life,  things  presented  to  us 
educate  us  only  inasmuch  as  we  react  upon 
them.  Lead  the  listless  savage  through  all 
that  is  most  worth  seeing,  knowing,  admiring, 
and  loving,  and  at  the  end  he  is  what  he  was 
at  the  start.  The  general  problem  of  educa- 
tion is  how  best  to  place  instinct  and  passion 
under  the  control  of  reason  and  conscience,  of 
higher  motives  and  tastes,  that  men  may  learn 
to  find  their  pleasure  and  their  happiness  in 
doing  what  brings  health,  knowledge,  and 
virtue.  The  educator's  aim  is  to  create  in- 


8  THINGS  OF  THE  MIND. 

terest,  for  thus  alone  is  it  possible  to  awaken 
mind.  How  often  it  happens,  where  dulness 
and  listlessness  had  prevailed,  a  new-comer 
brings  joy  and  fresh  thoughts.  This  the 
teacher  should  do ;  when  he  appears,  he  should 
call  forth  a  sense  of  glad  expectancy,  just  as 
a  true  actor  at  once  lifts  a  heavy  scene  into 
the  region  of  active  interest.  He  is  wholly 
free  from  the  pedant's  vanity  and  conceit,  and 
in  his  skill  there  is  the  play  of  life.  Mechani- 
cal iteration  is  the  radical  fault  in  education. 
We  pardon  our  instructors  almost  anything 
if  only  they  be  not  tiresome.  Better  not  to 
teach  or  preach  than  to  weary.  When  the 
pupil's  intercourse  with  the  teacher  opens  to 
him  glimpses  into  higher  worlds,  he  is  quick 
to  believe  all  that  is  told  him  of  heroes,  saints, 
and  sages.  Sowers,  reapers,  and  gardeners, 
hunters,  fishermen,  and  the  feeders  of  flocks 
are  the  best  society  for  boys;  they  stimulate 
an  observant  interest  in  the  things  which  are 
always  around  them,  and  touch  the  sources  of 
pure  delight  in  nature  in  her  most  beneficent 
and  pleasant  manifestations.  To  watch,  when 
one  is  young,  the  sun  with  gradual  wheel  sink 
slowly  from  sight,  or  the  stars,  as  one  by  one 
they  break  upon  the  view,  or  the  birds  when 
with  gentle  flutterings  they  settle  to  rest  amid 
the  leaves,  or  the  full-fed  cattle  as  they  lie  in 


VIEWS  OF  EDUCATION'.  9 

wakeful  dreams,  or  the  young  of  animals  dis- 
porting themselves  upon  the  green,  or  the 
bees  plying  their  task  amid  the  flowers,  or 
ants  providing  their  hoard,  or  any  of  the  thou- 
sand things  nature  offers  so  prodigally  to  our 
gaze,  —  is  to  drink  at  the  purest  and  freshest 
fountain  of  knowledge,  is  to  store  the  mind 
with  thoughts  and  images  which,  as  the  years 
go  on,  remain  with  us  fragrant  and  wholesome 
as  a  breath  of  air  from  life's  fair  dawn.  To 
look  on  the  fierce  battles  of  bulls,  of  boars, 
and  of  cocks  is  to  feel  the  might  of  courage 
and  endurance.  To  see  the  little  martens  as 
they  sally  forth  to  attack  the  hawk  is  to  learn 
what  pluck  and  daring,  what  a  union  of  several 
may  accomplish.  The  great  source  of  sym- 
pathy with  mankind,  as  with  nature,  are  those 
early  recollections  which  bring  back  to  us 
fathers  and  mothers,  brothers  and  sisters,  and 
all  the  fair,  fresh  world  which  circled  about 
our  childhood.  Read  no  book  unless  it  in- 
terest thee.  When  thou  readest,  or  speakest, 
or  hearest,  look  steadfastly  with  the  mind  at 
the  things  the  words  symbolize.  If  there  be 
question  of  mountains,  let  them  loom  before 
thee;  if  of  the  ocean,  let  its  billows  roll 
beneath  thy  eyes.  This  habit  will  give  to  thy 
voice  even  pliancy  and  meaning.  The  more 
sources  of  interest  we  have,  the  richer  is  our 


10  THINGS  OF   THE  MIND. 

life.  To  hold  any  portion  of  truth  in  a  vital 
way  is  better  than  to  have  its  whole  baggage 
stored  merely  in  one's  memory.  The  self- 
taught  look  at  the  world  with  their  own  eyes 
and  think  their  own  thoughts.  Thy  own  mind 
is  the  first  and  final  court  of  evidence,  and 
what  it  receives  it  should  receive  on  the 
authority  of  evidence  or  on  the  evidence  of 
authority;  in  other  words,  it  should  accept 
only  what  it  sees  to  be  true,  or  has  sufficient 
warrant  for  believing.  The  more  cultivated 
a  man  is,  the  greater  the  number  of  things 
which  interest  him.  Where  others  see  nothing 
he  finds  a  well-spring  of  fresh  thoughts;  he 
observes,  and  attends  to  what  he  observes; 
he  receives  much  because  he  brings  much ;  he 
discovers  truth  and  beauty  and  goodness  in 
things  because  he  bears  them  within  himself. 
His  mind  is  a  light  which  clothes  what  he 
contemplates  in  well-defined  forms  and  rightly 
shaded  colors;  his  heart  is  an  alembic  in 
which  the  fine  spirit  of  love  is  distilled;  his 
imagination,  like  a  god,  calls  forth  a  living 
world  from  the  waste  and  void  abyss  of  matter. 
He  who  thinks  for  himself  is  rarely  persuaded 
by  another.  Information  and  inspiration  he 
gladly  receives,  but  he  forms  his  own  judg- 
ment. Arguments  and  reasons  which  to  the 
thoughtful  sound  like  mockery  satisfy  the 


VIE  WS  OF  EDUCA  TION.  1 1 

superficial  and  the  ignorant.  An  enlightened 
mind  sympathizes  with  the  multitude  as  he 
sympathizes  with  children,  not  so  much  for 
what  they  are  as  for  what  it  is  possible  to 
make  of  them. 

"To  be  a  fool  after  the  fashion, "  says  Kant, 
"is  better  than  to  be  a  downright  fool." 
Noble  thoughts  and  pure  loves  inform  the 
countenance,  and  give  dignity  and  grace  to 
one's  whole  bearing.  A  fair  and  luminous 
soul  makes  its  body  beautiful.  Take  up  anew 
each  day  the  task  set  thee,  —  to  make  thy- 
self more  truly  a  rational,  social,  and  moral 

being. 

» 

Hasteless,  but  restless,  O  my  soul,  follow  after  the  light 
That  still  gleams  as  brightly  as  the  stars  that  follow  the  night. 

Man  is  not  born,  he  is  made  by  education,  - 
by  the  education  he  receives  and  by  the  educa- 
tion he  gives  himself.  Imagination  rules  our 
life.  It  creates  the  ideals  by  which  we  live; 
from  point  to  point  it  beckons  us  on  to  the 
unattained.  Over  vulgar  reality  it  throws  a 
mystic  veil;  it  draws  the  charmed  circle 
wherein  move  friendship,  love,  and  freedom. 
It  blows  the  trumpet  of  honor  and  fame;  it 
leads  the  way  to  glorious  death. 

Superficial  minds  are  fond  of  dwelling  upon 
the  evils  religion  has  wrought;  but  serious 


12  THINGS   OF   THE  MIND. 

thinkers  know  that  the  ever  open  and  inex- 
haustible fountain  of  faith,  hope,  and  love,  is 
belief  in  God,  — or  in  gods,  if  you  will. 

If  men  have  fought  and  persecuted  and  died 
for  their  religion,  it  is  because  they  have  held 
it  to  be  a  priceless  blessing.  This  breath  from 
higher  worlds,  unseen  but  felt  to  be  real,  is 
to  young  unfolding  souls  what  sunshine  and 
rain  are  to  the  growing  corn, 

When  the  vital  current  flows  rich  and 
healthful,  as  in  the  young,  life  is  believed, 
without  the  remotest  shadow  of  doubt,  to  be 
good;  but  this  is  largely  unconscious  life,  and 
the  question  is,  whether  consciousness  is  a 
blessing,  whether  to  see  things  as  they  are 
brings  joy  and  peace.  The  problem  therefore 
resolves  itself  into  this, — whether,  at  the 
heart  of  being,  behind,  within,  and  above  all, 
there  is  truth  and  love;  in  other  words,  whether 
the  ultimate  fact  is  conscious  life.  They  who 
are  unable  to  think  that  this  is  so  must  hold 
that  to  think  is  to  be  sad,  whereas  they  who 
believe  in  God  cannot  but  think  that  the 
misery  of  conscious  existence  is  accidental. 
Theism  is  optimism,  atheism  is  pessimism. 
If  there  were  no  God,  ignorance  would  be 
bliss,  and  education  a  crime.  Hope  and  love 
are  the  expression  of  faith  in  life's  goodness. 
He  alone  is  a  true  pessimist  who  neither  hopes 


VIEWS  OF  EDUCATION.  13 

nor  loves.  The  end  of  education  is  the  forma- 
tion of  character;  character  rests  on  the  basis 
of  morality;  and  morality,  if  it  have  life  and 
vigor,  is  interfused  with  religion.  True  reli- 
gion is  inseparable  from  morality,  and  morality 
from  right  life,  and  therefore  from  right  edu- 
cation. Hence  religion,  morality,  and  educa- 
tion, are  a  trinity.  "Religion,"  says  Herbart, 
"will  never  hold  the  tranquil  place  in  the 
depths  of  the  heart  which  it  ought  to  have, 
if  its  fundamental  ideas  are  not  among  the 
earliest  which  belong  to  recollection,  —  if  it  is 
not  bound  up  and  blended  with  all  that  chang- 
ing life  leaves  behind  in  the  centre  of  person- 
ality." As  we  should  strive  to  teach  ourselves 
to  take  delight  in  whatever  is  fair  in  nature, 
in  whatever  is  true  or  beautiful  in  literature 
or  art,  so  we  should  learn  to  find  pleasure  in 
whatever  brings  good  to  men,  and  first  of  all 
in  the  welfare  and  success  of  those  around  us, 
though  they  be  our  foes  and  rivals.  A  noble 
man  feels  that  no  human  being,  not  even  his 
enemy,  is  as  happy  as  he  would  have  him  be, 
and  thus  he  finds  satisfaction  in  what  only 
embitters  and  saddens  mean  and  narrow  souls. 
This  enlightened  good-will  which  enables  us' 
to  have  genuine  sympathy  with  all  men,  is  the 
very  soul  of  the  moral  character  which  it  is 
the  aim  and  end  of  education  to  form.  Why 


14  THINGS  OF   THE   MIND. 

do  men  choose  an  avocation?  To  gain  a  liveli- 
hood. But  the  better  sort,  whatever  their 
special  occupation,  labor  to  fit  themselves  for 
life  in  the  higher  world  of  thought  and  love. 
Let  every  faculty  be  developed  in  the  mild 
and  wholesome  air  of  religion.  Good  teachers 
feel  they  are  educating  themselves  as  well  as 
their  pupils,  and  when  this  belief  is  not  found 
the  power  to  educate  is  lacking.  He  who  is 
led  by  the  ideal  of  intellectual  culture  con- 
cerns himself  little  with  mere  questions  of 
social  order  and  political  economy,  for  he  feels 
that  if  he  can  but  make  reason  prevail  it  will 
put  right  whatever  may  need  ordering.  They 
who  are  able  to  draw  forth  the  mind  and 
illumine  the  soul  should  be  relieved  from  all 
other  tasks.  In  our  social  gatherings  we 
ascend  from  out  the  true  self,  to  glide  on  the 
surface  amid  the  forms  and  shows  of  life. 
Hence  nothing  deeply  interesting  is  ever  heard 
where  men  meet  to  eat  and  talk.  Do  what  it 
is  right  thou  shouldst  do  now;  but  strive 
ceaselessly  that  it  may  become  possible  for 
thee  to  do  the  work  thou  wast  born  to  do. 

The  craving  for  applause  is  as  morbid  as  the 
craving  for  alcohol.  He  alone  is  strong  who 
is  self-sufficient,  since  he  is  wh^,t  he  is  through 
communion  with  God  and  the  world  of  truth. 
When  the  great  man  —  poet,  philosopher,  states- 


VIE  WS   OF  ED  UCA  TION,  I  5 

man,  orator,  or  captain— has  gained  recogni- 
tion, he  becomes  indifferent  to  the  praise  he 
once  longed  for.  Happier  is  he  who  dies  know- 
ing his  own  worth,  himself  unknown,  "and 
what  most  merits  fame  in  silence  hid."  Let 
the  young  be  made  to  understand  that  the 
desire  to  appear,  to  be  seen,  to  be  noticed,  to 
be  talked  of,  springs  from  a  crude  and  bar- 
barous nature.  When  we  look  to  changes  to 
be  wrought  in  the  social  and  religious  world, 
it  may  be  permitted  to  feel  discouragement, 
but  when  there  is  question  of  upbuilding  and 
transforming  our  own  being  we  should  be  filled 
with  a  divine  confidence,  knowing  that  the 
aids  to  noble  life,  like  the  kingdom  of  God,  lie 
within  us.  Be  a  man,  not  a  partisan.  "  Great 
moral  energy,"  says  Herbart,  "is  the  result  of 
broad  views  and  of  whole  unbroken  masses  of 
thought."  Every  secret,  for  those  who  can 
see,  is  an  open  secret.  How  any  man  achieved 
any  godlike  thing,  any  man  may  know. 

Thou  mayst  not  be  an  artist  who  works  in 
stone  or  on  canvas,  or  who  breathes  harmo- 
nious numbers,  but  an  artist  thou  shouldst 
become,  in  the  ceaseless  effort  to  fashion  thy 
own  life  into  the  likeness  of  what  is  true, 
beautiful,  and  good.  Though  thou  shouldst 
think  all  the  world  a  stage,  learn  at  least,  like 
Augustus,  to  play  well  thy  part.  For  a  cen- 


1 6  THINGS  OF   THE  MIND, 

'  tury  now  and  more,  the  world  resounds  with 
much  speech  about  the  rights  of  man.  His 
first  and  chief  right  is  the  right  to  grow,  to 
unfold  his  being  on  many  sides,  and  to  bring 
himself  into  conscious  harmony  with  all  that 
is.  Heed  not  the  tempter's  voice,  seeking  to 
persuade  thee  thou  hast  done  thy  best.  To 
have  done  the  best  he  can  is  little  for  the  man 
who  feels  that  his  ever  urgent  duty  is  to  make 
himself  capable  of  still  better  things  by  push- 
ing day  by  day  into  wider  and  serener  worlds. 
Each  man  is  the  maker  of  himself,  the  power 
he  uses  being  God's;  and  each  present  moment 
bears  within  itself  the  future's  form  and 
substance.  To  be  a  man  is  to  be  a  fighter, 
a  combatant  on  the  world's  wide  battlefield, 
where  the  cohorts  of  ignorance  and  sin  wage 
ceaseless  warfare  against  the  soul.  No  one  is 
by  nature  good  or  great  or  wise,  but  whoever 
attains  such  height  reaches  it  by  hard  toil  and 
long  struggles  with  temptations  and  hindrances 
of  many  kinds.  Education  lays  the  foundation, 
self-education  erects  the  building.  Another 
may  show  the  way,  but  if  we  would  reach  the 
goal  we  must  ourselves  walk  therein.  What- 
ever may  strengthen  body,  mind,  or  soul,  the 
educator  needs  and  should  make  use  of.  The 
strong  man,  in  the  right  sense,  is  also  wise 
and  good,  helpful  and  loving.  They  who 


VIEWS  OF  EDUCATION  I/ 

starve  the  body  cannot  nourish  the  mind,  and 
if  the  heads  of  institutions  of  learning  have 
not  the  means  to  supply  copious,  wholesome 
food,  they  should  be  made  to  withdraw  from 
the  business  of  education;  but  if,  having  the 
means,  they  seek  to  save  money  at  the  expense 
of  health  and  life,  they  should  be  dealt  with  as 
criminals.  To  educate  to  passive  obedience 
is  to  predestine  to  failure. 

When  Demosthenes  was  asked  what  makes 
an  orator,  he  replied,  "Action,  action,  action." 
Had  the  question  been,  "What  makes  a  man?  " 
the  answer  should  have  been  the  same,  — 
"Action,  action,  action. "  We  know  what  will 
is  only  when  we  begin  to  act,  for  action  begets 
will.  When  we  clearly  see  a  thing  to  be  pos- 
sible we  have  begun  to  teach  ourselves  how  to 
make  it  real.  The  circle  of  thought  which 
we  create  for  ourselves  and  in  which  we  habit- 
ually move,  makes  us  what  we  -are.  As  the 
gardener  by  engrafting  can  produce  the  most 
precious  fruit  from  an  inferior  stock,  so  the 
educator,  by  implanting  fresh  thoughts  and 
principles,  new  aims  and  desires  in  the  mind 
of  his  pupil,  may  recreate  and  transform  his 
whole  being.  The  supreme  problem  for  the 
individual,  the  family,  the  school,  the  State, 
and  the  Church,  is  how  to  harmonize  liberty 
with  order.  The  higher  the  source  of  author- 


1 8  THINGS   OF   THE  MIND. 

ity,  and  the  head  of  rule,  the  easier  the  solu- 
tion. The  rhythmic  movement  of  life  is  the 
mark  of  health  in  the  physical,  the  domestic, 
and  the  social  body.  In  every  ill-ordered 
household  there  is  degeneracy. 

The  power  within  and  behind  nature  is  the 
power  within  and  behind  man,  and  the  more 
we  realize  that  we  are  part  of  nature,  that  what 
we  call  nature  is  a  force  which  streams  through 
us  as  a  type  of  law  and  order,  of  wisdom  and 
harmony,  of  strength  and  goodness,  the  more 
do  we  advance  in  dignity  of  being  as  rational 
and  moral  men.  Endowments  are  possibilities 
merely;  each  one's  self-activity  must  deter- 
mine what  for  him  they  shall  become. 

When  we  say  man  is  born  free  we  mean 
nothing  more  than  that  he  is  born  capable  of 
making  himself  free  by  a  process  of  gradual 
emancipation  from  the  thraldom  of  ignorance, 
selfishness,  and  sensuality.  This,  self-educa- 
tion must  accomplish  for  him.  In  a  world 
where  multitudes  strive  for  knowledge,  power, 
and  wealth,  the  indolent  and  the  listless  are 
made  use  of  or  thrust  back.  The  law  of 
affinity,  beginning  with  chemical  atoms,  runs 
upward  to  souls  and  God.  The  mind  is  drawn 
to  what  is  akin  to  it,  as  planets  are  drawn  to 
suns. 

Our  talents  come  to  us  largely  from  our  social 


VIEWS  OF  EDUCATION.  19 

inheritance  and  environment,  and  they  should 
be  used  for  the  common  good.  We  begin  with 
studying  how  to  learn,  and  we  end  with  learn- 
ing how  to  study.  The  more  we  advance  the 
more  conscious  we  become  of  obeying  ideal 
aims  and  ends.  Only  he  who  strives  to  dis- 
tinguish himself,  to  make  himself  different 
from  the  crowd  around  him,  .becomes L.wis_e_and 
strong.  Be  many  kinds  of  man,  but  be  sincere 
and  high...  What  a  wise  man  knows  and  loves 
is  more  interesting-  than  himself,  and  if  he 
write  he  will  write  of  that,  not  of  himself. 
The  proper  attitude  of  the  mind  toward  the 
objective  world  is  that  of  philosophical  indif- 
ference. Things  are  what  they  are,  and  we, 
too,  from  moment  to  moment,  are  what  we 
are;  let  the  relation  be  seen  and  recognized. 
Beware  of  the  will-o'-the-wisp  which  would 
lead  thee  to  defend  whatever  thou  mayst  at 
any  time  have  said  or  written.  Little  of  what 
the  best  have  written  has  significance  for  more 
than  one  generation.  They  who  have  learned 
most  have  had  most  to  unlearn. 

All  the  child  and  youth  has  been  taught,  the 
man  must  relearn  if  he  is  to  arrive  at  insight. 
Possession  makes  us  indifferent  or  self-satis- 
fied; the  ceaseless  striving  after  better  things 
makes  us  men.  When  we  consider  the  dis- 
eases to  which  man  is  subject  it  seems  mar- 


2O  THINGS  OF  THE  MIND. 

vellous  that  any  one  should  have  good  health; 
and  when  we  attend  to  the  innumerable  sources 
of  his  errors,  it  seems  almost  incredible  that 
any  one  should  think  and  judge  rightly ;  for 
his  mind  is  swayed  from  the  line  of  truth  by 
youth  and  by  age,  by  ignorance  and  by  learn- 
ing, by  feebleness,  as  by  excessive  vigor  of 
body,  by  imagination,  and  by  the  lack  of  it, 
by  love  and  by  hate,  by  hope  and  by  despair,  by 
wealth  and  by  poverty,  by  sluggishness  and 
by  haste,  by  fear  and  by  envy,  by  lust  and  by 
greed,  by  pride  and  by  conceit,  by  rationalism 
and  by  fanaticism,  by  cowardice  and  by  hypoc- 
risy, by  credulity  and  by  incredulity.  How 
then  shall  he  learn  to  see  things  as  they  are  ? 
Not  malice  and  self-interest  alone,  but  pity, 
sympathy,  love,  and  prudence  prompt  us  to 
deceive.  The  truth  is  sometimes  cruel  and 
brutal,  or  shocking  in  its  nakedness,  and  they 
who  soften  its  harshness,  or  throw  a  veil  over 
its  hideousness,  will  not  believe  they  are 
wicked.  The  mother  hides  it  from  her  child, 
the  physician  from  his  patient.  We  soon 
learn  all  our  friends  have  to  tell  us;  our  intel- 
lectual shocks  and  surprises  come  from  those 
who  disagree  with  us,  and  they  are  our  best 
teachers.  The  more  we  know,  the  more  we 
doubt.  Doubt  is  the  shadow  which  the  splen- 
dor of  truth  as  it  falls  upon  the  mind  always 


VIEWS  OF  EDUCATION.  21 

casts.  It  is  easy  to  speak  or  write  of  what  we 
know  little;  they  whose  know! edge  is  large 
and  profound  find  less  to_say.  Whoever  turns 
his  mind  habitually  and  strongly  in  a  given 
direction  will  find  that,  little  by  little,  it 
loses  the  power  of  taking  any  other.  The 
scientist  becomes  unable  to  think  poetically 
or  religiously;  the  poet  and  the  mystic  lose 
sight  of  the  defmiteness  of  things.  Thus  the 
soul,  like  the  body,  is  subdued  to  what  it 
works  in.  No  state  of  things  is  good,  no 
theory  is  practice,  the  real  is  never  the  ideal, 
—  the  spirit  whereby  and  wherein  thou  livest 
and  workest  is  the  all  in  all. 

O  for  a  thrill  of  love,  a  thrill  from  life's  fair  prime, 

To  make  my  being  start  and  blossom  into  rhyme, 

Bring  heaven  near  and  give  to  stars  their  appealing  light 

And  to  my  soul  the  wings  which  tempt  infinite  flight. 

By  love  we  live,  when  love  is  dead  all  things  are  dead, 

And  in  a  world  we  move  whence  God  and  the  soul  have  fled. 

"  Never,"  says  Jean  Paul,  "  has  one  forgotten 
his  pure,  right-educating  mother.  On  the  blue 
mountains  of  our  dim  childhood  toward  which 
we  ever  turn  and  look,  stand  the  mothers  who 
marked  out  to  us  from  thence  our  life ;  the  most 
blessed  age  must  be  forgotten  ere  we  can  forget 
the  warmest  heart." 

At  her  death  Laura  appeared  to  Petrarch,  in  a 
dream,  and  holding  out  her  hand  she  asked: 


22  THINGS  OF   THE  MIND. 

<%  Do  you  not  remember  her  who  influenced 
your  youth  and  led  you  out  of  the  common  road 
of  life?" 

A  woman  cannot  hope  to  make  a  sage  or  a 
saint  or  a  hero  of  the  man  who  loves  her,  but 
she  may,  of  the  child.  Contempt  for  women  is 
the  mark  of  a  crude  mind  or  of  a  corrupt  heart. 
What  strength  is  there  not  in  the  rich  joyfulness 
of  youth,  bursting  forth  into  glad  song  and 
laughter,  and  passing  lightly  away  from  hard- 
ship and  disappointment,  out  again  to  where  the 
glorious  sunshine  plays  upon  the  rippling  waters 
and  the  happy  flowers.  The  very  memory  of 
it  all  comes  back  to  us  like  a  message  from  God 
to  bid  us  be  stout  of  heart  and  to  keep  growing. 
Those  we  love  sanctify  for  us  the  places  where 
they  have  lived ;  the  spots  even  where  they  have 
but  passed  are  sacred.  < 

The  philosophy  of  life  is  the  philosophy  of 
education,  and  sympathy  with  the  race  tends  to 
resolve  itself  into  the  desire  to  give  to  all  a  right 
culture;  for  it  is  plain  that  in  this  way  better 
than  in  any  other  we  are  able  to  be  of  help  to 
our  fellows.  Our  interest  in  education  is  the 
measure  of  our  interest  in  the  world  and  in 
humanity.  He  alone  is  a  true  believer  in  the 
ideal  of  culture  who  is  persuaded  that  culture, 
like  virtue,  is  its  own  reward,  that  nothing  an 
enlightened  mind  may  enable  him  to  obtain  is 


VIEWS  OF  EDUCATION.  2$ 

as  good  as  the  enlightened  mind  itself.  The 
aim  of  culture,  as  it  is  also  the  aim  of  religion, 
is  to  create  an  inner  strength  and  enlightenment 
which  supersedes  and  makes  superfluous  mere 
legalism. 

Power  of  concentration,  of  persevering  appli- 
cation of  the  whole  mind  to  what  ought  to  be 
known  and  done,  is  a  mark  of  genius,  and  it  is 
also  one  of  the  best  results  of  right  education. 
The  educational  value  of  the  study  of  physical 
science  is  found  in  the  sense  it  awakens  of  the 
universal  presence  of  law  and  order,  and  also  in 
the  training  to  close  and  accurate  observation 
which  it  enforces. 

It  is  easy  to  educate  too  much,  to  put  one's 
own  mind  and  will  in  the  place  of  the  learner's ; 
but  we  are  always  safe  when  we  help  the  pupil 
to  educate  himself.  "  The  mind,"  says  Schiller, 
"  possesses  only  what  it  does."  All  of  us,  the 
most  ignorant  even,  know  more  than  we  know 
how  to  put  to  right  use.  Prejudices  are  idols 
to  which  we  sometimes  sacrifice  the  most  pre- 
cious things,  —  the  light  of  the  mind,  the  joy  of 
the  soul,  the  free  play  of  the  imagination,  the 
love  of  truth  itself,  and  yet  a  man  without  pre- 
judices is  like  a  man  without  a  home  or  a  coun- 
try. He  is  a  stranger  who  finds  no  fellows,  no 
company  in  which  he  will  gain  recognition,  for 
nothing  makes  the  crowd  so  uncomfortable  as 


24  THINGS  OF   THE  MIND. 

dispassionate  reason,  the  pure  light  of  the  intel- 
lect. It  is  easy  to  meet  with  well-informed 
minds,  but  we  seldom  find  one  who  has  a  real 
world-view  and  a  circle  of  thought  in  which  he 
is  at  home,  whose  life  rests  upon  unity  of  pur- 
pose, whose  conduct  is  controlled  by  principle, 
whose  thinking  has  truth  for  its  single  aim.  In 
former  times  to  assert  truth  was  to  risk  life,  or, 
at  the  least,  loss  of  name  and  goods ;  but  now, 
when  there  is  no  danger  and  the  whole  rabble 
rush  in  each  with  his  torch  to  enlighten  the 
world,  truth,  grown  ashamed  of  its  nakedness, 
hides  from  the  eyes  of  men. 

"Work  and  enthusiasm,"  says  Goethe,  "are 
the  pinions  on  which  great  deeds  are  borne." 
If  the  pupil  see  that  his  teacher  is  mean  or  arbi- 
trary, the  school  becomes  for  him  a  place  of 
perversion.  Language  is  interesting  because  it 
is  the  garb  and  medium  of  thought  and  feeling; 
it  is  a  symbol  which  has  educational  value  only 
when  it  brings  us  into  conscious  communion 
with  the  things  symbolized.  All  experience  is 
first  of  all  a  mental  fact.  The  word  "  matter/* 
like  matter  itself,  is  the  expression  of  a  condition 
of  mind. 

Culture  enables  us  to  see  how  little  worth 
most  of  our  knowledge  has,  how  little  it  deserves 
the  name  of  knowledge.  Learn  to  know  and 
feel  the  soul  of  goodness,  truth,  and  beauty, 


VIEWS   OF  EDUCATION.  2$ 

which,  however  hidden,  acts  everywhere  in  man 
and  in  the  universe,  making  the  world  fair  and 
life  precious.  "  There  is  no  easy  way  of  learn- 
ing what  is  difficult/'  says  De  Maistre ;  "  the 
unique  method  is  to  shut  one's  door,  to  say  one 
is  not  at  home,  and  to  work."  In  education  the? 
essential  is  not  programmes  and  methods,  but 
able  and  devoted  men  ;  not  the  things  taught,  but :» 
the  spirit  in  which  they  are  taught.  To  attempt 
to  teach  morality  as  a  separate  something,  and 
not  to  recognize  that  it  ought  to  penetrate  and 
dominate  all  our  studies,  is  a  fatal  error.  In 
high  men  the  highest  happiness  springs  from 
the  consciousness  of  being  and  doing  right.  To 
be  truthful  and  honorable  are  the  most  difficult 
virtues,  for  truth  and  honor  spring  from  the 
finest  sense  of  duty  of  which  the  soul  is  capable. 
The  educator's  ceaseless  endeavor  should  be  to 
prevent  the  formation  of  habits  of  wrong-doing; 
for  such  habits  are  enfeeblement  of  will,  are  the 
weakness  which  is  misery.  Character  is  edu- 
cated will.  Will  is  dark,  mind  is  luminous ;  and 
it  is  the  purpose  of  education  to  flood  the  will 
with  intellectual  light.  What  we  steadfastly  will 
to  be,  we  become.  A  mighty  purpose  gives  us 
now,  in  a  way,  what  we  are  resolved  to  have. 
It  is  hardly  a  paradox  to  maintain  that  it  is 
better  not  to  read  at  all  than  to  read  only  news- 
papers. Health  and  wealth  are  appreciated 


26  THINGS  OF  THE  MIND. 

when  they  have  been  lost ;  knowledge  and  virtue 
when  they  have  been  found.  He  teaches  best 
who  enables  his  pupil  to  dispense  with  his  aid, 
as  he  governs  best  who  makes  his  rule  unneces- 
sary. The  virtue  of  the  intellect  makes  us  take 
delight  in  truth  and  beauty  simply  because  they 
are  true  and  beautiful,  as  moral  virtue  makes  us 
love  goodness  simply  because  it  is  good.  The 
shallowness  and  triviality  of  man's  spirit  is  the 
most  perplexing  puzzle  for  a  serious  mind. 
Since  he  is  not  really  concerned  in  any  intelli- 
gent way,  even  for  his  bodily  health  and  well- 
being,  is  it  not  idle  to  suppose  in  him  a  yearning 
for  truth  and  love?  If  he  takes  little  pains  to 
make  the  best  of  this  life,  how  shall  we  believe 
that  he  truly  longs  for  immortal  life?  Have  we 
not  all,  like  blasts  viveurs,  lost  the  sense  of  the 
joy  and  sweetness  of  life?  To  see,  to  hear,  to 
feel,  to  drink  the  light  of  day  and  star-illumined 
night,  to  breathe  the  perfume  of  flowers  and 
ripening  corn,  to  watch  the  pageant  of  the 
changing  year,  the  play  of  children  and  the 
flight  of  birds,  to  dream,  to  think,  to  know,  to 
believe,  to  hope,  to  love,  —  this  and  all  else  which 
only  God  could  give,  were  bliss  and  pure  de- 
light if  we  were  but  sensible  of  the  boundless 
boon. 

"  Gods  are   we,  bards,  saints,   heroes,   if  we 
will."     The  finding  pleasure  in  doing  right  is  a 


VIEWS  OF  EDUCATION.  2/ 

certain  result  of  a  habit  of  right-doing.  Im- 
moral conduct  is  a  mark  of  retrogression  toward 
the  life  of  primitive  man;  and  as  savages, 
when  thrown  into  contact  with  civilized  races, 
disappear,  so  in  a  healthful  society  there  should 
be  an  irresistible  tendency  to  eliminate  the 
vicious  and  criminal.  Base  pleasures  deaden 
the  relish  for  life.  They  who  are  most  con- 
scious of  the  need  of  self-improvement  are  most 
humble,  and  they  who  devote  themselves  most 
assiduously  to  this  task  are  most  wise.  The 
best  men  have  no  price ;  they  can  be  bought 
neither  with  hope  of  reward  nor  with  fear  of 
punishment,  purchased  neither  with  money  nor 
with  place  nor  with  pleasure.  Let  money  be  thy 
servant  and  procurator,  not  thy  lord  and  master. 
Formerly  culture  was  to  be  had  only  in  half 
a  dozen  centres,  —  in  Athens,  Rome,  or  Alexan- 
dria, in  Paris,  Oxford,  or  Leipsic;  but  this  is 
true  no  longer,  and  when  young  men  tell  me 
they  cannot  pursue  the  work  of  self-education 
in  a  Western  village,  I  believe  them.  The  fault 
lies  within  themselves.  If  I  have  only  bread, 
and  you  want  water,  you  will  go  to  some  one 
else;  if  you  want  muscle  and  I  have  only 
brains,  if  you  want  money  and  I  have  only  vir- 
tue, you  will  not  care  for  me.  (  To  have  the 
best  of  everything  is  possible  only  for  those 
who  are  themselves  the  best.  The  best  thoughts 


28  THINGS   OF   THE  MIND. 

are  to  be  found  in  literature,  but  who  loves  them? 
The  best  eloquence,  poetry,  and  music,  like  the 
glories  of  nature,  are  wasted  merely  on  clowns 
and  boors.  The  best  which  has  been  made 
known  to  man  is  the  power  of  love,  as  it  is 
revealed  in  Christ,  but  who  believes  it?  Until 
our  faith  and  knowledge  enter  into  our  very 
flesh  and  blood,  we  neither  believe  nor  rightly 
understand.  We  truly  know  only  what  we  have 
undergone,  what  suffering  has  taught  us.  Over 
those  who  lack  the  spirit  of  self-sacrifice,  ideals 
have  little  power;  they  live  in  the  present, 
absorbed  in  the  selfish  desire  of  possessing  and 
enjoying.  The  discipline  of  want  and  sorrow 
by  which  man  has  been  hammered  into  shape, 
purified,  and  made  human,  is  for  them  simply 
an  evil.  They  must  indulge  themselves;  or,  if 
this  is  denied  them  they  are  filled  with  envy  and 
hate.  Knowing  nothing  of  the  inner  aids  to 
life,  they  would  grasp  everything.  They  do  not 
see  that  wisdom  is  taught  by  suffering,  and  that 
consciousness  of  higher  needs  is  indispensable 
to  the  attainment  of  wealth  of  heart  and  mind. 
Knowledge  makes  us  unafraid,  while  love  ever 
fills  us  with  dread  of  loss. 

'*  Not  one  but  many  lives  are  his 
Who  carries  the  world  in  his  sympathies." 

Enthusiasm  is  a  flame  which  leaps,  not  from 
mind  to  mind,  but  from  heart  to  heart.   It  is  blown 


VIEWS  OF  EDUCATION.  2Q 

into  intenser  heat  by  a  single  heroic  example 
than  by  all  the  proverbs.  Whenever  a  man  of 
genius  appears  he  comes  to  remain ;  and  whether 
we  love  or  hate  him,  he  is  our  master.  He  who, 
in  utter  sincerity,  devotes  his  life  to  a  noble  cause 
—  to  religion,  freedom,  science,  or  art  —  maybe 
tempted  to  think,  when  the  end  approaches,  that 
he  has  failed;  but  such  work  can  no  more 
fail  than  God  can  fail. 

To-day  of  all  is  best : 
The  others  are  quite  dead 
And  lie  deep  in  the  breast 
Of  changeless  past  at  rest : 
Crown,  then,  to-day  thy  head ; 
To-day  be  thou  God's  guest. 

What  are  numbers?  One  only  God  makes 
the  universe,  one  soul  may  stand  against  a 
world,  one  mind  see  higher  truth  than  a  parlia- 
ment of  nations.  Do  we  not  turn  from  a  thou- 
sand chattering  daws  to  listen  to  one  nightingale 
singing  to  its  love  alone? 

Galileo  was  thought  to  be  a  perverter  of  reli- 
gious truth,  but  when  men  came  to  understand 
him  they  saw  he  was  a  light-bearer  through 
God's  heavens.  Napoleon,  the  supreme  man- 
killer,  was  a  poor  shot.  The  secret  of  power  in 
the  world  of  action  lies  in  the  ability  to  make  \ 
the  many  do  what  even  the  strongest  cannot  do 
himself ;  but  this  secret,  like  that  of  the  poet,  is 


30  THINGS   OF   THE   MIND. 

known  only  to  those  to  whom  it  reveals  itself; 
it  cannot  be  taught.  The  sense  of  power  is  an 
essential  element  in  all  pleasure,  as  consciousness 
of  defect  is  always  painful.  The  highest  power 
is  intellectual  and  moral,  and  to  know  that  it  is 
ours  gives  therefore  the  purest  pleasure.  The 
greatest  minds  and  hearts  run  greatest  perils. 

Consciousness  of  defect  is  the  evolutionary 
principle  which  urges  us  toward  completeness. 
In  those  who  feel  they  know  enough,  love 
enough,  believe  enough,  and  are  all  they  care  to 
be,  this  principle  is  lacking.  The  finer  and 
deeper  the  intellect,  the  keener  and  subtler  is 
the  intellectual  conscience,  —  the  love  of  truth 
for  itself,  as  being  our  best  equivalent  of  the 
supreme  reality,  the  absolute.  Contentment 
with  what  we  have  and  longing  for  what  we 
have  not  are  the  positive  and  negative  poles  of 
life.  Common  natures  circle  about  the  positive, 
while  the  nobler,  feeling  that  this  positive  is,  in 
truth,  negative,  reach  out  for  the  infinite  ideal, 
which  it  is  impossible  indeed  to  grasp,  but  which 
they  perceive  to  be  the  only  essentially  real. 

The  heart  we  bear  within  us  makes  us  men ; 
It  is  the  fountainhead  of  noble  thoughts, 
The  source  of  noble  living  and  of  power. 
For  there  is  placed  the  central  seat  of  God, 
Who  to  the  pure  and  strong  of  heart  gives  peace, 
And  courage  without  weakness  to  endure 
The  worst  that  may  befall  a  guiltless  soul. 


VIEWS  OP  EDUCATION.  31 

The  higher  and  purer  our  happiness,  the  more 
peaceful  and  tolerant  we  become. 

Whatever  is,  is  a  manifestation  of  force.  This 
is  the  sum  of  all  ideas  of  being,  of  that  of  the 
absolute  even,  for  God  is  pure  act.  "  I  think, 
therefore  am/1  is  but  the  affirmation  of  the 
identity  of  force  and  being.  The  measure  of 
worth  consequently  is  quantity  and  quality  of 
power.  Nothing  distinguishes  men  of  genius 
from  other  men  so  much  as  their  exceptional 
power  of  attention.  They  may  not  be  able  to 
bear  a  greater  weight  of  thought  than  others, 
but  they  can  bear  it  for  a  longer  time,  holding 
it  all  the  while  under  the  pure  light  of  the  mind. 
The  strength  of  the  strong  is  developed  by 
opposition,  by  neglect,  by  threats,  and  scorn. 
They  know  their  ability,  and  indignation  at  the 
wrongs  they  suffer  calls  it  forth. 

Our  fatal  fault  is  facility.  Ten  thousand 
Americans  speak,  write,  teach,  govern,  and  re- 
form the  world  with  facility,  but  hardly  one  of 
us  is  a  master  in  anything.  We  are  busy  with 
many  things,  but  with  ourselves  scarcely  at  all. 
And  we  therefore  lack  the  consciousness  of 
defect  which  impels  to  the  struggle  for  higher 
worth.  Culture  lifts  us  out  of  the  class  in  which 
we  were  born,  for  it  takes  us  away  from  all 
classes  into  worlds  where  only  the  best  live  and 
love.  The  way  is  hard  and  long  which,  out  of 


32  THINGS  OF   THE  MIND. 

the  dark  prison  of  ignorance  wherein  we  are 
born,  leads  up  to  intellectual  light  and  liberty; 
but  the  goal  once  reached,  the  memory  of  the 
toil  and  pain  is  lost  in  pure  delight.  The  objec- 
tions to  culture  are,  at  bottom,  objections  to 
education  ;  or  they  are  arguments  against  a  par- 
tial, superficial,  and  false  cultivation.  Like  the 
prejudices  of  the  poor  against  the  rich,  they 
spring  generally  from  envy,  from  a  sense  of 
inferiority,  and  not  from  a  real  view  of  the  aims 
and  ends  of  culture.  Our  word  "  culture  "  finds 
its  best  equivalent  in  the  Latin  kumanitas.  It  im- 
plies a  fine  humanity,  or  humaneness,  in  thought, 
word,  and  deed ;  it  is  an  enlightened  and  sym- 
pathetic consciousness  of  all  that  is  best  in  human 
experience  and  achievement.  It  looks  away 
from  what  is  personal  and  partial,  from  temper- 
ament and  whim,  from  calling  and  position, 
from  family  and  people,  to  what  is  of  universal 
and  permanent  interest ;  and  in  this  world  of 
the  universally  and  permanently  interesting,  it 
embraces  all  things,  whether  they  belong  to  soul 
or  body,  whether  they  relate  to  thought  or 
action.  That  knowledge  alone  is  fruitful  which, 
amid  struggle  and  contradiction,  ripens  within 
the  depths  of  one's  own  heart  and  is  made  part 
of  his  very  being,  —  is,  indeed,  himself.  Coinci- 
dences and  harmonies  between  different  nerve- 
centres  of  the  brain,  which  have  been  established 


VIEWS  OF  EDUCATION.  33 

by  education,  may  disappear  through  disuse ; 
but  as  steeds,  turned  loose  to  graze,  when  taken 
in  hand  again,  quickly  strike  the  gaits  to  which 
they  have  once  been  trained,  so  the  channels  of 
habitual  thought  are  never  wholly  obliterated, 
but,  at  the  worst,  they  are  choked  with  a  kind 
of  mental  drift,  which  a  flood  of  fresh  ideas  will 
carry  away.  In  the  highest  poetry  there  is  a 
two-fold  life, —  that  of  men  and  deeds  as  they 
stand  forth  in  history,  and  that  which  genius 
pours  in  and  around  them;  and,  since  life  begets 
life,  this  kind  of  poetry  has  supreme  educational 
value.  To  understand  a  poet,  we  must  feel  in 
reading  him  the  emotion  which  inspired  his 
song.  His  words  are  set  to  melody,  and  the 
music  reveals  their  meaning. 

Best  happiness  is  health  of  heart,  and  mind 
Which  in  sound  body  works  to  worthy  ends ; 
This  is  the  soul  of  life,  —  this  makes  a  man, 
And  gives  to  all  his  being  a  God-ward  trend. 

The  true  view  of  life  is  the  religious ;  for  no 
other  explains  our  aspirations  and  longings,  or 
justifies  enthusiasm  and  self-sacrifice. 

The  worst  consequences  of  the  newspaper 
habit  may  be  seen  in  the  young,  for  whom  each 
morning,  like  a  daily  meal,  accounts  of  vice  and 
crime  are  served  up,  to  make  them  incapable  of 
admiration,  reverence,  and  awe.  What  father 

3 


34  THINGS  OF  THE  MIND. 

employs  burglars,  murderers,  and  adulterers,  or 
quacks,  liars,  and  sophists,  as  tutors  for  his 
children?  A  man's  daily  reading,  like  his  habit- 
ual conversation,  is  a  symbol  of  his  life  and 
character.  To  one  who  was  presented  to  him, 
Socrates  said :  "  Speak,  that  I  may  see  thee." 
Now  he  would  say:  "  Show  me  what  thou  read- 
est,  that  I  may  see  thee." 

"  Most  readers,  like  good-natured  cows, 
Keep  browsing  and  forever  browse ; 
If  a  fair  flower  come  in  their  way 
They  take  it  too,  nor  ask,  '  What,  pray?' 
Like  other  fodder  it  is  food, 
And  for  the  stomach  quite  as  good." 

To  free  ourselves  from  the  rudeness  of  our 
early  manner  and  speech  is  comparatively  an 
easy  task;  what  is  difficult  is  to  clear  the  mind 
of  prejudice,  and  to  purify  the  heart  from  greed 
and  sensuality.  Galton  says  that  not  more  than 
one  in  four  thousand  may  be  expected  to  attain 
distinction.  It  is  to  this  chosen  one  among  the 
thousands  that  philosophers,  poets,  and  educators 
always  look;  and  some  of  them  believe  that,  as 
there  is  a  love  which  may  create  life  under  the 
ribs  of  death,  so  genius  may  evoke,  with  almost 
m/raculous  power,  thought  and  desire  even  from 
the  most  unpromising  sources.  When  a  nation's 
thinkers  and  poets,  heroes  and  saints  are  all 
dead,  the  best  part  of  its  life  is  with  the  dead. 


VIEWS  OF  EDUCATION.  35 

He  who  is  born  to  lead  finds  followers,  for  nearly 
all  men  are  born  to  follow.  There  is  radical 
wrong  in  the  education  which  diminishes  or 
weakens  the  freshness  and  vigor  of  the  youthful 
mind  and  body.  The  best  work  the  student 
does  is  that  which  teaches  him  the  love  of  work. 
Zeal  lacks  discretion,  and  a  zealous  teacher  may 
easily  overdo  his  task,  just  as  an  anxious  mother 
spoils  her  child  with  too  much  care.  It  is  with 
schools  as  with  doctors.  If  the  patient  get 
well  or  die,  we  praise  or  blame  the  physician ; 
if  the  pupil  succeed  or  fail,  we  accredit  it  to  the 
school,  though  the  cause  lie  elsewhere.  In  the 
things  of  the  mind  that  which  is  decisive  is  not 
the  length  of  time,  but  the  concentration  of 
power  with  which  we  apply  ourselves.  "  The 
writing  of  a  single  page,"  says  Jean  Paul,  "  stim- 
ulates the  desire  to  learn,  more  than  the  reading 
of  a  whole  volume."  Work  to  satisfy  thine  own 
nature,  thine  innermost  craving  for  truth,  beauty, 
and  love,  —  not  to  please  another.  Should  it 
occur  to  thee  to  think  thyself  worthy  of  higher 
honor  or  place,  recall  to  mind  the  great  poets 
and  philosophers  who  have  lived  and  died  poor 
and  neglected  by  the  world,  but  "  by  their  own 
spirit  deified." 

Failures,  for  those  conscious  of  inner  power, 
are  like  trumpe  trails  to  rally  to  renewed 
attacks- 


36  THINGS  OF  THE   MIND. 

He  who  has  a  few  facts  and  arguments  at  his 
fingers'  ends,  thinks  highly  of  his  learning,  as  a 
well-dressed  fellow  with  a  few  dollars  in  his 
pocket  feels  rich;  but  a  man  of  real  culture 
gives  little  heed  to  his  mere  facts  and  argu- 
ments, as  one  of  real  wealth  hardly  knows  what 
he  has  on  or  in  his  pocket.  To  know  one  thing 
thoroughly,  it  is  necessary  to  know  many  things ; 
but  the  one  thoroughly  known  is  decisive,  is  the 
test  of  one's  intellectual  grasp.  Accuracy  is  a 
result  of  the  habit  of  observation  and  attention. 
Variety  and  wealth  of  vocabulary  indicate  range 
of  thought  and  degree  of  culture.  When  to 
appreciate  an  author  it  is  necessary  to  take  a 
special  point  of  view,  he  will,  at  the  most,  prove 
interesting  only  for  a  few.  A  fair  knowledge  of 
some  other  language  than  one's  mother-tongue 
liberates  from  the  bondage  of  words. 

A  true  teacher  is  a  pioneer  through  the  tan- 
gled forest,  a  shepherd  who  leads  to  wholesome 
pastures,  a  guide  who  shows  the  most  practicable 
road,  a  physician  who  tells  what  diet  best  suits, 
a  captain  who  inspires  the  confidence  which  is 
half  the  battle,  a  friend  who  makes  the  long 
way  seem  short.  He  has  himself  become  and 
achieved  all  that  he  would  have  his  pupil  accom- 
plish and  be.  His  example  is  of  more  value 
than  many  lessons,  and  to  know  him  and  to 
live  in  his  presence  is  joy  and  enlightenment. 


VIEWS  OF  EDUCATION.  37 

How  does  not  intoxicated  youth,"  says  Jean 
Paul,  "  hang,  like  bees  on  flowering  lime-trees, 
drinking  in  the  spirit  of  a  celebrated  teacher." 
A  coward  makes  a  coward ;  a  dullard,  a  dullard ; 
a  liar,  a  liar.  Alexander  risked  drinking  poi- 
son rather  than  suffer  the  poison  of  distrust. 
"Heavens!"  says  Jean  Paul  again,  "how  is  it 
that  always  we  find  something  good  in  books 
on  education,  and  so  seldom  anything  of  it 
in  teachers?"  Not  what  the  teacher  says,  but 
what  he  is  and  does,  draws  the  young  brood 
after  him.  I  remember  how  I  went  on  in  happy, 
healthful  ignorance  until  I  was  eight  years  old, 
taught  only  to  look  forward  to  the  school  as  to 
some  Fortunate  Isle  where  Wonderland  would 
be  shown.  I  have  not  been  disappointed. 

The  teacher's  confidence  in  him  gives  the  pupil 
\  confidence  in  himself;  and  self-confidence  lies  at 
the  root  of  all  achievement.  It  gives  strength, 
and  invites  help  from  others ;  it  is  half  the  wis- 
dom of  life.  To  arouse  the  educational  sense  is 
better  than  to  teach  rules ;  for  this  is  the  living 
fountain  from  which  rules  have  sprung.  "  The 
difference  between  good  and  bad  teaching,"  says 
Freeman,  "  mainly  consists  in  this,  whether  the 
words  are  really  clothed  with  meaning  or  not." 
To  do  any  right  or  useful  thing  is  better  than  to 
have  the  fame  of  Caesar.  Let  neither  thy  own 
nor  thy  party's  success  lead  thee  astray,  by 


38  THINGS  OF   THE  MIND. 

filling  thee  with  a  love  of  ease  or  with  self- 
complacent  thoughts.  Love  truth ;  every  lie  is 
a  lie  to  God,  and  he  alone  is  truthful  who 
shrinks  from  a  lie  as  an  honest  man  shrinks  from 
a  theft.  Reverence  for  all  goodness  is  the 
fragrant  flower  and  ripe  fruit  of  a  noble  life. 
He  who  has  not  learned  to  find  pleasure  in  the 
good  of  others  is  not  only  uneducated,  but  un- 
civilized. As  we  learn  to  control  nature  by 
obeying  her  laws,  so  we  learn  to  govern  our- 
selves and  others  by  obedience  to  the  laws  that 
make  us  men.  Solon,  when  asked  how  wrong- 
doing in  the  State  could  be  prevented,  made  this 
reply :  "  By  teaching  those  who  are  not  wronged 
to  feel  the  same  indignation  at  wrong  as  the 
sufferers  themselves  feel."  If  a  merchant,  sell 
honest  wares ;  if  an  author,  write  honest  truth ; 
if  a  preacher,  speak  honest  faith.  Sincerity  is 
1  the  virtue  God  and  men  most  love.  Let  thy 
ceaseless  aim  be  to  gain  strength,  to  develop 
strength,  to  preserve  strength,  —  strength  of 
body,  strength  of  mind,  strength  of  will.  If 
thou  art  a  gentleman  thou  wilt  be  kindly, 
modest  and  brave,  sincere  and  gracious.  "  No 
true  luxury,  wealth,  or  religion,"  says  Ruskin, 
"  is  possible  to  dirty  persons."  Behavior,  it 
may  be  said,  is  the  all  in  all.  It  is  conduct  and 
more  than  conduct.  It  is  what  poetry  is  to 
truth,  what  style  is  to  thought  —  it  is  the  fine 


VIEWS  OF  EDUCATION.  39 

flower  and  fair  body  of  noble  and  righteous  life. 
He  who  can  not  behave  has  no  claim  on  our 
attention,  no  right  to  appear  at  all.  The  reward 
the  lover  of  culture  seeks,  is  the  having  a  culti- 
vated mind,  as  the  reward  the  lover  of  God 
hopes  for  is  the  having  a  godlike  soul. 

"  That  I  to-morrow  shall  be  alive 

I  frankly  do  not  know  ; 
But  if  to-morrow  for  me  arrive, 
That  I  to-morrow  shall  fearless  strive, 
Beyond  all  doubt  I  know." 

"  Who  shootes  at  the  midday  sonne,"  says  Sir 
Philip  Sidney,  "  though  he  be  sure  he  shall 
never  hit  the  marke ;  yet  as  sure  he  is  he  shall 
shoote  higher  than  who  aymes  but  at  a  bush." 


CHAPTER  II. 

VIEWS   OF   EDUCATION. 

I  seek  not  to  make  men  read,  but  to  make  them  think.  — 
MONTESQUIEU. 


T^HE  ear  is  made  for  the  thrill  of  pulsing  air, 
but  it  is  fashioned  in  the  silent  chamber  of 
the  womb  ;  the  eye's  home  is  the  luminous 
ether,  but  it  is  formed  in  darkness;  and  the 
mind  which  receives  all  messages  from  the  outer 
world,  all  intimations  from  the  inner,  and  weaves 
them  into  the  rich  harmony  of  truth  and  beauty, 
gains  this  divine  power  in  solitude,  in  lonely 
dreams  and  uninterrupted  meditations,  far  from 
crowds  and  the  noisy  contests  of  vulgar  ambi- 
tion. The  highest  natures  are  the  most  respon- 
sive, not  only  to  what  speaks  to  the  soul,  but 
also  to  what  appeals  to  the  senses.  He  who 
takes  genuine  delight  in  life  finds  the  secret  of 
fresh  thoughts  and  inspired  words.  The  phys- 
ical universe  is  a  school,  the  State  is  a  school, 
the  Church  is  a  school,  life  is  a  school,  and  in  all 
actual  or  possible  schools,  the  soul  is  still  its 


VIEWS  OF  EDUCATION.  41 

own  best  teacher.  To  live  and  work  in  the  hope 
that  it  shall  be  well  for  those  who  follow  us  that 
we  have  lived,  is  to  breathe  the  bracing  air  of 
health  and  happiness ;  but  this  faith  is  possible 
only  to  the  unselfish  and  brave.  Morality  is 
the  victory  of  man's  higher  nature  over  his 
lower.  The  mark  of  the  lower  is  that  it  looks 
to  self;  of  the  higher  that  it  looks  to  God  and 
all  things.  A  nation's  power  and  wealth  is  never 
so  well  employed  as  in  promoting  right  educa- 
tion. Love  of  truth  is  the  basis  of  character. 
Some  emphasize  love,  others  truth ;  but  neither, 
parted  from  the  other,  suffices.  No  truth  has 
worth  unless  it  be  associated  with  something 
we  love ;  no  love  is  real  unless  it  be  grounded 
in  truth.  Sensation  is  a  treadmill,  thought  leads 
to  new  worlds.  Whatever  widens  and  enriches 
life,  whatever  emancipates  the  soul,  is  good. 

As  the  fairest  fruit-tree  is  chiefly  wood,  break- 
ing only  here  and  there  into  fragrant  blossom  and 
luscious  meat,  so  even  the  best  books  are  mostly 
dull  matter,  where,  at  intervals,  heavenly  truth, 
kissed  by  the  sun  of  genius,  buds  and  flowers 
into  perfect  form.  The  original  thoughts  and 
words  of  the  most  inspired  author,  a  little  vol- 
ume will  easily  contain. 

The  Philistine  thinks  lightly  of  a  work  of 
genius,  though  in  some  thousand  millions  of 
men,  there  was  but  one  able  to  do  this  work. 


OF  THE 

(UNIVERSITY. 


42  THINGS  OF  THE  MIND, 

Whoever  is  able  to  do  what  is  worth  doing,  and 
able  to  do  it  better  than  any  one  else,  may, 
without  misgivings,  set  to  work.  Accomplish- 
ment makes  cavil  absurd.  In  seeking  to  raise 
men  above  the  spirit  of  the  age,  let  us  not  lose 
sight  of  what  is  strong  and  beneficent  in  this 
spirit.  They  who  diffuse  truth  and  love  belong 
to  a  higher  race  than  conquerors  and  shop- 
keepers. It  is  with  books  as  with  men,  —  it  is 
easiest  to  acquaint  one's  self  with  those  least  worth 
knowing.  Plato  will  no  more  speak  to  the  dull 
and  heedless  from  the  printed  page  than  he 
would  have  stooped  to  their  level  had  he  met 
them  in  his  Attic  grove.  "  Privileged  minds," 
said  Frederick  the  Great,  "  take  rank  with  sov- 
ereigns." Nay,  they  outrank  them,  just  as  a 
real  man  makes  a  merely  titular  personage  ridic- 
ulous. The  impulse  to  deliver  one's  self  from 
scorn  is  a  motive  not  less  powerful  than  the 
love  of  praise.  Hence  poverty  or  physical  de- 
formity is  often  a  stimulus  to  exercise  of  mind. 
Amid  the  noise  critics  and  readers  make  about 
reverberant  names,  from  some  obscure  corner 
or  the  gloom  of  a  prison  cell  a  Milton  or  a 
Pascal,  a  Goldsmith  or  a  Bunyan,  a  Cervantes 
or  an  A  Kempis,  steals  in  with  his  little  book 
and  is  immortal.  Like  men,  books  have  their 
fortunes,  but  circumstance  cannot  make  what  is 
excellent  worthless  or  what  is  worthless  excel- 


VIEWS  OF  EDUCATION.  43 

lent.  Popularity  is  won  and  kept  by  a  noise  of 
words,  and  when  the  name  is  no  longer  sounded 
it  is  forgotten;  but  what  the  best  minds  once 
approve  the  best  minds  will  always  approve. 
He  who  finds  his  pleasure  in  the  mind  has  what 
pleases  ever  with  him.  The  thinker  is  never 
lonely,  as  the  lover  is  never  poor.  The  best 
legacy  a  man  can  leave  is  a  good  book.  Emer- 
son thought  nothing  so  much  wanting  in  our 
colleges  as  a  professor  of  books.  It  is  as  diffi- 
cult to  teach  the  young  to  know  books  as  to 
know  men.  What  is  best  in  literature,  as  in  life, 
is  seen  to  be  so  only  by  those  who  have  made 
themselves  worthy  of  the  heavenly  knowledge. 
Richard  de  Bury  says  of  books :  "  They  are  the 
masters  that  instruct  us  without  rods  and  ferulas, 
without  hard  words  and  anger.  If  you  ap- 
proach them  they  are  not  asleep :  if  you  inter- 
rogate them,  they  conceal  nothing:  if  you 
mistake  them,  they  never  complain :  if  you  are 
ignorant  they  will  not  laugh  at  you." 

Books  console  us  for  the  world  of  men.  Now 
that  printed  sheets  are  scattered  fast  and  thick 
as  snowflakes  from  wintry  skies,  who  may  hope 
to  write  aught  that  shall  endure?  If  any  one, 
he  who  utters  sweetest  truth  in  fewest  words. 

We  live  within  the  mind  and  heart  alone, 
And  whatsoever  is  not  there,  for  us 
Need  not  exist :  and  therefore  we  may  find 
Or  make  a  home  in  every  place  and  clime, 


44  THINGS   OF  THE  MIND. 

And  be  ourselves  the  same,  though  all  else  change : 
For  we  are  what  we  know  and  love,  and  not 
The  things  that  strike  upon  the  outer  sense. 
So  even  we  may  live  beneath  the  eye 
Of  God  and  dwell  in  His  eternity, 
While  hurrying  time  with  all  its  roaring  sound 
Sinks  into  nothingness.     But  truth  and  love 
Remain  always,  and  we  also  with  them. 

Like  a  setter  afield,  be  all  alive,  with  eye  and 
ear  and  nose,  to  catch  whatever  message  may 
be  borne  to  thee  from  God's  boundless  game- 
park.  The  mind  is  tinged  with  the  colors  the 
eye  habitually  rests  upon,  and  there  is  an  unsus- 
pected relation  between  our  habits  of  looking 
and  our  habits  of  thinking.  It  is  easy  to  speak 
ill  of  books,  the  best  of  them  being  imperfect 
enough,  but  they  alone  bring  us  close  to  the 
thought  and  love  of  the  greatest  and  noblest 
who  have  lived.  It  is  hard  to  meet  with  a 
superior  man,  and  when  he  is  found  he  will  not 
tell  his  secret;  but  we  are  forever  in  the  com- 
pany of  God,  and  in  the  books  of  men  of  genius 
the  best  that  is  known  lies  open  to  us.  What 
innumerable  lamps  night  after  night  are  set 
aglow  to  illumine  the  shrines  which  hold  the 
thoughts  of  genius,  and  what  devout  eyes  bend 
over  them  and  find  therein  light  for  the  mind, 
refreshment  for  the  heart,  and  solace  for  the 
soul.  Thy  days  are  few,  O  man  of  genius,  more 
brief  it  would  seem  than  those  of  other  men. 


VIEWS  OF  EDUCATION.  45 

Work,  then,  while  time  is  given  thee;  clothe 
truth  and  love  in  words  which  for  ages  shall  be 
as  full  of  cheer  and  comfort  as  the  thought  of 
hearthfires  to  travellers  who  through  the  dark- 
ness of  wintry  nights  turn  their  faces  homeward. 
Thy  gifts  are  fatal,  but  thou  wouldst  not  ex- 
change them  for  empires. 

The  more  we  live  within  the  mind,  the  more 
our  thought  and  love  take  root  in  eternity:  for 
the  soul  floating  in  the  awful  stream  of  matter 
where  all  things  flow  on  and  change  ceaselessly, 
fastens  its  view  upon  what  is  forever  the  same ; 
and  hence  when  we  are  truly  awake  we  find 
ourselves  in  an  ever  during  and  infinite  world. 
As  the  diver  who  wearies  not  will  at  last  bring 
up  a  priceless  pearl,  so  the  tireless  thinker  who 
plunges  into  the  ocean  of  being  will  be  rewarded, 
at  the  least,  by  glimpses  of  truth.  Wait  for  a 
thought,  as  a  fisher  for  a  bite.  The  curiosity 
of  the  noblest  minds  to  learn  what  cannot  be 
known  would  seem  to  be  morbid.  They  still 
seek  what  they  feel  can  never  be  found.  But  is 
not  this  bent  of  the  soul  an  evidence  rather  that 
we  are  born  for  God,  for  eternal  life?  Dead 
hopes  and  vanished  dreams,  fallen  races  and 
mouldering  ruins  lie  along  the  way  of  progress. 
Whoever  advances  leaves  behind  something 
that  was  dear.  But  why  regret  illusions  which 
had  power  to  lead  us  astray?  The  loss  increas- 
ing knowledge  brings  is  gain. 


46  THINGS  OF  THE  MIND. 

When  we  cease  to  learn  we  cease  to  be  inter- 
esting. To  learn  is  to  teach  one's  self;  for 
whether  we  gain  intellectual  power  and  knowl- 
edge by  observation,  by  reading,  or  by  listening, 
the  result  is  the  outcome  of  our  self-activity.  We 
are  self-taught,  and  the  educator  does  best 
when  he  awakens  interest  and  attention,  keeps 
his  pupils  mentally  alive,  makes  them  as  eager 
to  exercise  the  mind  as  lusty  boys  are  to  run 
or  ride  or  swim.  It  is  his  business  to  set  them 
thinking.  Thousands  can  tell  what  they  know, 
but  few  can  rouse  to  energetic  and  persevering 
activity.  In  a  more  enlightened  age  the  teach- 
er's chair  will  be  refused  to  whoever  lacks  the 
power  to  awaken  interest.  All  is  wrong  when 
able  men  are  busy  with  questions  of  finance, 
and  the  training  of  human  beings  is  left  to 
dolts  and  dullards.  The  information  the  teacher 
imparts  may  be  had  in  any  encyclopaedia,  but 
the  impulse  to  thought  and  love  can  be  given 
only  by  a  living  soul. 

Hast  thou  sometimes  seen  a  foolish  dog  rush, 
with  furious  barkings,  from  a  farm-yard  to  attack 
a  train?  Such  is  the  wisdom  of  those  who  growl 
at  the  nature  of  things,  or  who  would  arrest  the 
widening  and  deepening  consciousness  of  the 
human  mind.  Whoever  loves  may  hate,  who- 
ever thinks  may  doubt,  whoever  is  free  may 
fail.  This  is  a  permanent  condition  of  human 


VIEWS  OF  EDUCATION.  47 

life,  which,  whatever  changes  science  and  prog- 
ress may  make  in  man's  environment,  will  con- 
tinue to  be  the  law  of  his  existence.  It  may 
happen  that  the  more  a  thing  is  proved,  the  less 
it  is  believed.  We  believe  in  God  before  we  are 
capable  of  understanding  what  proof  means,  and 
no  force  of  argument  can  strengthen  our  faith. 

Sometimes  when  I  read  a  line  of  Horace  or 
Virgil,  a  sense  of  pleasure,  as  from  the  fragrance 
of  moist  woodlands  in  spring,  overcomes  me, 
and  memories  of  my  college  days  start  to  life 
like  the  bursting  of  buds  and  the  songs  of  birds. 
The  more  life  we  have,  the  more  we  feel  that  to 
be  alive  is  a  good  and  happy  thing.  Pessimism 
is  born  of  waning  vitality,  of  lack  of  faith,  hope, 
and  love.  Love  clothes  the  very  body  of  the 
beloved  with  beauty  and  sacredness;  it  is  the 
soul  throwing  itself  like  a  veil  about  the  flesh ; 
it  is  purity  and  reverence.  Its  worship  and 
adoration  spring  from  itself  without  thought  of 
good  or  evil.  They  who  have  more  faith  in 
majorities  than  in  God  and  the  soul  do  not  know 
what  truth  and  freedom  are.  To  wish  that  the 
crowd  agree  with  us  is  evidence  of  bad  taste,  it 
is  a  mark  of  vulgarity.  Truth  cannot  be  fitted 
to  the  mind  as  clothes  are  fitted  to  the  body ;  it  is 
not  the  conclusion  of  a  syllogism,  but  the  result 
of  a  habit  of  listening  and  observing,  of  doing 
and  thinking.  Fortunate  are  they  who  have 


48  THINGS  OF  THE  MIND. 

learned  to  love  to  do  what  they  ought  to  do. 
The  desire  for  what  we  lack  makes  us  men. 
^"Tew  friends,"  says  Landor,  "  fewer  acquaint- 
ances, no  familiars."  A  great  part  of  wisdom 
consists  in  knowing  how  to  get  along  with  fools. 
Great  truths  are  never  perfectly  luminous.  As 
the  uncertainty  of  the  hour  of  death  gives  zest 
to  life,  so  the  obscurity  which  envelops  our 
highest  thoughts  adds  to  their  charm.  What  is 
manifest  is  uninteresting.  Our  very  bodies  re- 
quire the  mystery  of  drapery  to  prevent  them 
from  becoming  vulgar.  The  suggestion  rather 
than  the  revelation  of  the  Infinite  is  the  charac- 
teristic of  high  art.  "  The  naked  truth "  is  a 
mistaken  phrase,  for  truth  to  be  known  must  be 
clothed.  The  baser  metal  is  the  jewel's  foil. 
The  fine  air  of  pure  truth  is  too  rare  for  our 
breathing.  The  divine  thoughts  and  inspired 
words  of  Plato  or  Shakespeare  would  never  have 
made  their  way  in  the  world  had  they  not  been 
imbedded  in  a  grosser  element  of  trivial  ideas 
and  vulgar  interests. 

What  the  great  number  of  intelligent  and 
enlightened  minds  accept  is  but  another  name 
for  truth.  The  infinite  reason  is  revealed  in  the 
consent  of  those  who  know  and  think.  The 
best  work  of  genius  is  unintentional, —  not  what 
it  sets  itself  to  do,  but  what  inner  necessity  drives 
it  to  do ;  and  it  is  only  when  it  thus  utters  itself 


VIEWS  OF  EDUCATION.  49 

that  it  is  creative.  Events  solve  the  great  prob- 
lems, and  our  discussions  and  contentions  are 
but  the  foam  that  crests  the  wave.  In  the  world 
of  ideas,  the  multitude  hesitate  and  are  as  unset- 
tled as  children  who  give  fantastic  shapes  to 
clouds.  Truth  for  them  takes  the  form  given  to 
it  by  vivid  imaginations,  and  while  they  assent, 
they  doubt  whether  they  see  what  the  cloud- 
gazer  points  out,  or  they  are  undecided  whether 
it  is  like  a  whale,  or  a  lion,  or  a  human  being. 
The  cloud,  indeed,  keeps  no  shape,  and  the 
view  the  common  mind  has  of  the  ideal  world 
is  a  view  of  what  is  ever  changing  and  dissolving. 

Women  are  aristocrats,  and  it  is  always  the 
mother  who  makes  us  feel  that  we  belong  to  the 
better  sort.  He  who  lives  within  lives  with 
God,  and  needs  no  other  friend.  This  is  the 
sum  of  Christ's  life  and  teaching,  the  divine  wis- 
dom of  which  the  world  still  fails  to  comprehend. 
The  master  need  not  sign  his  name ;  it  is  uttered 
by  his  work.  It  is  not  worth  while  to  live  if 
life  bring  not  higher  knowledge  and  purer  love. 

If  he  is  fortunate  who,  whenever  it  pleases 
him,  may  call  together  the  most  select  company, 
what  shall  we  say  of  him  who,  at  any  moment, 
can  summon  from  every  age  and  every  land, 
their  choice  spirits,  and  hold  converse  with  them 
as  their  equal?  Is  he  not  among  mortals  an 
immortal?  Does  he  not  live  in  serene  and 
4 


50  THINGS  OF   THE  MIND. 

enduring  worlds,  to  which  nor  strength  of  body, 
nor  beauty,  nor  youth,  nor  wealth,  nor  kingly 
power  can  lead?  The  fundamental  precept  of 
pedagogy  is  this :  Study  things  rather  than 
words,  which  are  but  the  symbols  of  things. 
"Words,"  says  Hobbes,  "  are  wise  men's  coun- 
ters,—  they  do  but  reckon  with  them, —  but  they 
are  the  money  of  fools."  The  animal  hardly 
distinguishes  between  itself  and  the  external 
world,  and  the  thoroughly  conscious  mind  knows 
that  such  distinction  is  largely  illusory.  Sight, 
whether  of  the  eye  or  the  mind,  makes  objections 
ridiculous.  Reason  is  God's  noblest  gift,  and  to 
discourage  its  use,  whatever  the  pretext,  is  impi- 
ous. The  mere  intellect  is  perverse ;  it  takes  all 
sides,  maintains  all  paradoxes,  and  comes  to 
understanding  only  when  it  listens  to  the  whis- 
perings of  common-sense.  It  is  the  true  enfant 
terrible.  In  the  individual,  self-consciousness  is 
awakened  by  self-conscious  man ;  in  the  race,  it 
is  awakened  by  God.  The  supernatural  is  God 
and  the  soul.  It  is  better  to  give  than  to  receive, 
for  giving  makes  us  generous,  and  receiving 
makes  us  helpless.  He  who  has  done  honest 
work  may  die  with  hope.  A  new  thought  con- 
soles us  for  a  day  which  else  were  lost.  Though 
we  fail,  we  shall  help  the  universal  cause,  if  we 
strive  under  the  impulse,  not  of  a  party,  but  of 
God.  The  more  we  fall  back  upon  the  inner 


VIEWS  OF  EDUCATION.  51 

source  of  life,  the  truer  our  thoughts  become. 
The  first  and  highest  need  of  man  is  faith  in  the 
worth  and  goodness  of  life  and  the  source  of 
life.  To  understand  the  foolishness  of  the  people, 
study  popular  men.  Sad  infirmity  of  the  thinker 
and  the  poet, —  they  resent  the  criticism  of  those 
whom  neither  intellect  nor  imagination  controls. 
The  worth  of  the  gift  lies  in  the  heart  of  the 
receiver.  There  has  been  a  time  when  the 
thought  of  a  game  of  marbles  awakened  in  me  a 
more  pleasant  expectancy  than  could  anything 
now  which  pope  or  king  or  people  might 
promise. 

Infinite  riches  and  variety  belong  to  life,  and 
if  all  seems  vain  and  unprofitable,  life's  source 
is  running  low.  To  imagine  we  could  do  some 
worthy  thing  if  we  but  had  a  proper  field  is  the 
mark  of  imbecility.  Are  not  God  and  his  uni- 
verse with  thee?  Be  true  to  thy  better  self, 
without  thought  of  what  purpose  thy  word  and 
deed  may  serve.  To  be  weak  is  to  be  misera- 
ble, but  to  be  strong  is  not  necessarily  to  be 
happy.  In  the  right  mood  the  opaque  earth 
seems  to  become  transparent;  in  the  wrong 
mood  the  soul  itself  is  but  dull  matter.  If  our 
thought  and  love  were  great  enough  the  uni- 
verse would  drift  in  the  line  of  our  desire. 

The  mark  of  a  cultivated  mind  is  ability  to 
look  at  all  things  from  an  impersonal  standpoint, 


52  THINGS  OF  THE  MIND. 

to  lose  sight  of  itself  and  to  see  with  the  eyes  of 
others  and  of  God.  Only  the  noblest  souls  feel 
how  impossible  it  is  to  be  wholly  sincere  and 
loving,  to  attain  to  the  ideal  which  is  perfect 
truth  and  love.  Upon  those  who  give  them- 
selves through  a  lifetime  to  high  and  noble 
aims,  the  shadow  of  their  light  at  least  will  fall. 
The  wish  to  be  left  alone,  to  be  lost  sight  of,  is 
thought  to  be  insincere,  but  only  by  those  who 
live  in  the  transitory  rather  than  in  the  abiding 
world.  The  unhappy,  if  they  are  noble,  are 
often  the  noblest;  for  their  misery  ceaselessly 
drives  them  to  self-development.  When  we 
grow  weary  of  an  occupation,  a  place,  or  a 
friend,  it  is  of  ourselves  we  are  weary.  We 
seek  new  surroundings,  but  what  we  need  is  a 
new  self.  Thrift  is  a  virtue  we  all  praise.  The 
thrifty  succeed ;  they  gain  wealth,  place,  and 
honor;  that  they  generally  unfit  themselves  for 
knowledge  and  the  rational  enjoyment  of  life 
seems  to  be  a  minor  thing.  The  aim  and  pur- 
pose of  nearly  all  men  is  to  improve,  not  them- 
selves, but  their  circumstances,  and  so  long  as 
this  is  so  there  is  no  hope  of  any  real  improve- 
ment at  all  A  blow  in  the  prize-ring  sets 
millions  to  reading  and  talking,  but  after  a 
month  it  is  forgotten ;  a  stroke  of  the  pen  passes 
unnoticed,  but  after  a  thousand  years  it  may  still 
be  an  impulse  to  noble  thoughts  and  deeds. 


VIEWS  OF  EDUCATION.  53 

"  Other  delight  than  to  learn  I  know  not/'  says 
Petrarch.  The  best  any  one  may  know  of  life 
and  literature  lies  open  to  all,  but  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  highest  truth  and  beauty  the  multi- 
tude are  indifferent  or  incredulous.  Genius  is 
attention ;  it  is  a  mind  held  to  the  contempla- 
tion of  truth  and  beauty  with  a  fascination  like 
that  the  fairest  objects  exert  upon  the  eye.  It 
exists  to  reveal  God's  thought  to  the  world, 
and  its  most  favorable  environment  is  poverty, 
opposition,  and  solitude.  If  thou  desirest  the 
approbation  of  fools,  be  foolish.  He  who  holds 
no  responsible  position,  but  is  simply  a  looker-on, 
has  a  reserved  seat  at  life's  spectacle.  Let  him 
learn  to  see  things  as  they  are,  and  to  make 
authentic  report.  The  only  interests  worthy  of 
the  serious  attention  of  a  lover  of  truth  are  those 
of  the  mind.  Literature  is  the  result  of  a  per- 
sonal view  of  things,  and  science,  therefore,  can 
never,  in  the  strict  sense,  be  literature ;  that  is, 
it  can  never  be  a  subject  of  the  profoundest 
interest  to  man.  The  mere  sequence  of  phe- 
nomena concerns  us  little;  what  does  concern 
us  is  the  relation  of  the  whole  to  our  own  life, 
and  this  is  the  proper  business  of  literature. 
The  impulse  to  higher  and  freer  life  is  given 
by  individuals,  never  by  the  crowd,  who  are 
always  swayed  and  dominated  by  the  lower 
needs  and  common  instincts.  Profound  books 


54  THINGS  OF   THE   MIND. 

are  not  popular,  not  because  they  are  hard  to 
understand,  but  because  only  a  few  take  genuine 
interest  in  the  questions  which  underlie  every 
theory  of  being  and  of  life.  The  many  are  con- 
tent to  see  and  hear,  to  taste  and  touch,  and 
what  is  beyond  is  for  them  as  though  it  did  not 
exist.  And  when  one  driven  by  irresistible 
impulse  takes  ultimate  problems  in  utter  serious- 
ness, he  is  misunderstood  and  called  irreligious 
for  being  religious.  Thought  cannot  compass 
thee,  O  God,  words  cannot  name  thee.  We 
can  but  adore  with  boundless  yearning,  know- 
ing thou  art  above,  beyond,  and  in  all,  the  all  in 
all  of  every  soul  that  thinks  and  loves.  Only 
an  habitual  student  can  exercise  an  intellectual 
influence ;  only  an  habitual  meditator  and  holy 
liver  can  exercise  a  moral  and  religious  influ- 
ence. To  teach  the  child  religion  is  doubtless 
a  difficult  task,  but  in  the  right  environment 
it  will  insinuate  itself  into  his  life,  to  elevate  his 
thoughts,  widen  his  sympathies,  and  purify  his 
desires.  "  Learning,"  says  Fuller,  "  hath  gained 
most  by  those  books  by  which  the  printers  have 
lost."  He  is  a  wise  man  who  uses  even  the 
most  trifling  happenings  in  his  daily  life  for  his 
own  improvement.  For  purposes  of  education 
a  true  man  is  worth  more  than  all  manuals, 
codes,  systems,  and  apparatus.  Better  listen  to 
Socrates  on  a  street  corner  than  to  Dryasdust 


.NIVERSITT; 

VIEWS   OF  EDUCATION.  55 

in  a  marble  palace.  Repetition  is  nature's 
secret.  Keep  on,  and  how  far  thou  shalt  go, 
only  God  knows.  The  most  moral  thing  in 
nature  is  fidelity  to  fact;  change  a  word,  add 
a  line,  and  if  there  is  an  eye  to  see  it  is  patent. 
What  form  genius  shall  take,  God  alone  can 
determine ;  but  whatever  form  it  take,  men  will 
be  grateful. 

Occupations  which  deform  and  stiffen  the 
body  Aristotle  calls  crafts,  and  by  the  same 
word  he  designates  all  money-getting  pursuits, 
because  they  preoccupy  and  degrade  the  intel- 
lect. The  highest  man,  he  says,  finds  his 
pleasure  in  the  noblest  things. 

"The  Ephesians,"  says  Heraclitus,  "cast  out 
Hermodorus,  the  worthiest  man  among  them, 
saying:  '  No  one  of  us  shall  be  worthiest,  or  let 
him  be  so  elsewhere  and  among  others.1"  De- 
velopment of  faculty  is  the  educator's  aim  and 
end,  the  imparting  of  information  is  incidental 
and  subsidiary.  The  making  education  free 
weakens  the  sense  of  responsibility  in  parents. 
There  is  a  restless  activity  in  the  breast  of  youth, 
and  he  is  the  best  educator  who  turns  this  energy 
to  high  and  generous  ends.  In  pursuing  our 
personal  aims  we  run  in  the  dark;  when  we 
seek  nothing  but  truth  and  love,  God's  light 
shines  about  us.  I  buy  many  books,  and  at 
rare  intervals  find  one  worth  more  than  I  paid 


56  THINGS  OF   THE  MIND. 

for  all  the  others.  These  are  the  pure  metal  in 
the  mine  which  consists  for  the  most  part  of 
clay  and  rock.  The  newspaper  is  the  sewer 
of  average  opinion.  It  is  well  this  should  have 
issue,  but  when  we  drink  or  bathe  we  seek  pure 
fountains  and  clear  streams.  Say  boldly  what 
thou  holdest  to  be  true;  however  mistaken, 
thy  thought  and  speech  will  not  upset  God's 
world.  Seek  not  what  thou  mayst  do,  but  seek 
the  spirit  from  which  all  true  work  proceeds. 
What  we  feel,  not  what  we  think,  determines 
conduct;  doctrines  which  have  no  power  to 
inspire  emotion  have  none  to  impel  to  action. 
We  may  educate  ourselves  in  every  direction ; 
and  they  are  not  the  least  wise  who  strive  to 
learn  the  secret  of  simple  cheerfulness.  Who 
shall  teach  men  to  find  their  pleasure  in  what 
strengthens,  refines,  and  enlightens?  Idleness, 
ennui,  listlessness,  trifling  occupations,  and  friv- 
olous amusements  consume  the  time,  which, 
rightly  used,  would  make  us  all  strong,  wise,  and 
happy. 

The  memory  of  our  purest  and  noblest  joys 
remains  with  us  like  a  fountain  of  perpetual 
youth,  while  that  of  the  wrong  we  have  done  is 
the  only  pain  which  follows  us  with  unrelent- 
ing persistence.  "  The  fool/'  says  Confucius, 
"  complains  because  he  is  unknown,  the  wise 
man  because  he  does  not  know.'*  It  matters 


VIEWS  OF  EDUCATION.  57 

little  what  our  special  studies  may  be,  if  the 
issue  is  mental  cultivation  and  moral  worth.  An 
elephant  that  has  lived  a  hundred  years  has  had 
less  of  life  than  a  boor  who  has  lived  but  fifty, 
and  the  boor  of  fifty  has  had  less  of  life  than  is 
given  to  a  poet  within  an  hour.  "  Glory  is  so 
sweet,"  says  Pascal,  "  that  whatever  it  is  asso- 
ciated with,  though  it  be  death  itself,  seems 
desirable."  Acquaintance  with  the  best  spoils 
everything  else.  We  can  never  make  the  world 
of  thought  a  world  of  facts.  Since,  however, 
the  world  of  facts  is  everywhere  and  at  all  times 
unlovely,  they  are  fortunate  who  learn  to  live 
habitually  in  the  high  regions  which  only  the 
mind  can  inhabit.  Books  are  an  ever  present 
opportunity  to  turn  each  idle  or  weary  hour  to 
profit  or  delight.  "  The  soul  of  a  people,"  says 
Voltaire,  "  dwells  in  the  few  who  employ,  sup- 
port, and  govern  the  multitude."  Let  us  say, 
rather,  in  the  few  who  inspire,  enlighten,  and 
guide  the  many. 

Strength  and  energy  are  not  the  same.  The 
energetic  are  often  weak ;  and  the  strong,  be- 
cause they  are  restful  and  self-contained,  seem  to 
want  energy.  The  American  has  too  much  en- 
ergy and  too  little  strength.  He  is  hurried,  and 
lacks  the  repose  which  is  the  sign  and  symbol 
of  strength.  Not  what  happens,  but  the  way  in 
which  we  take  what  happens,  is  decisive. 


58  THINGS  OF   THE  MIND. 

The  scholar  among  his  books  is  in  paradise, 
the  swineherd  is  happier  among  his  pigs.  Take 
information  from  whoever  can  give  it,  but  follow 
thy  judgment.  "  He  who  first  praises  a  book 
becomingly/*  says  Landor,  "  is  next  in  merit  to 
the  author."  He  who  utters  a  truth  with  new 
depth  and  intensity  makes  it  new,  though  the 
doctrine  be  old.  Is  it  not  a  divine  privilege  to 
speak  a  word,  to  write  a  phrase,  to  do  a  deed, 
which  one's  fellow-men  shall  never  be  willing 
to  forget?  Those  who  love  us  understand  us 
better  than  those  who  hate.  Let  us  take  cour- 
age, then,  and  not  think  too  meanly  of  ourselves. 
"  Those  who  trust  us,"  says  George  Eliot,  "  edu- 
cate us."  A  people's  importance  lies  not  in  its 
numbers  or  its  wealth,  but  in  the  contribution  it 
makes  to  the  higher  good  of  mankind.  If  we 
talk  often  with  a  man  of  profound  and  vigorous 
mind  we  come  to  see  things  in  the  light  in 
which  they  appear  to  him ;  and  if  we  make 
ourselves  familiar  with  a  great  book  into  which 
he  has  put  the  best  of  his  life,  we  shall  be  trans- 
formed into  his  likeness  in  a  yet  more  effectual 
way.  Love  divines  the  destiny  of  the  beloved, 
and  while  it  points  to  the  rugged  way  which 
leads  to  high  achievement,  inspires  the  courage 
to  walk  therein  with  as  fresh  a  heart  as  though 
it  were  some  flowery  path,  illumined  by  the 
light  of  Beauty's  eye.  They  who  know  and 


VIEWS   OF  EDUCATION.  59 

love  are  able  to  render  the  best  service.  Gifts 
leave  us  what  we  were,  but  whoever  loves  and 
teaches  us  bestows  new  and  richer  life.  Per- 
fection consists  in  realizing  the  completest  ac- 
cord among  the  variety  of  fully  developed  en- 
dowments. The  loving  heart,  the  thinking 
mind,  the  glowing  imagination,  the  command- 
ing conscience,  all  acting  with  freedom  and 
with  power,  form  the  pure  light  of  a  perfect 
human  life.  What  is  so  wonderful  as  a  plastic 
soul,  which,  coming  into  this  world  of  fatal  laws 
and  fixed  forms,  moults  its  wings  and,  taking 
new  flight,  looks  on  the  whole  as  though  it  but 
now  created  its  universe? 

When  the  high  hope  and  thought  of  youth 
remain  real  and  living  in  the  mature  man,  the 
result  is  a  great  and  noble  character. 

Believe  in  no  triumph  which  is  won  by  the 
loss  of  self-respect  or  the  deadening  of  faculty. 
There  is  no  formula  for  the  discovery  of  truth. 
Genuine  life  is  life  for  others.  The  faith,  the 
hope,  the  love,  the  joy,  the  strength  which  we 
impart  thereby  first  become  truly  our  own. 
The  strongest  cannot  always  soar:  the  eagle 
himself  stoops  to  earth  for  food  and  rest.  All 
work  and  no  play  is  the  dullard's  way.  The 
more  men  think,  the  less  will  they  agree ;  but  it 
is  more  important  that  they  should  think  than 
that  they  should  think  alike.  Questions  of 


60  THINGS  OF   THE   MIND. 

money  separate  husband  from  wife,  brother 
from  brother,  and  friend  from  friend.  They 
make  all  men  suspicious  and  less  loving,  be- 
cause questions  of  money  are  questions  of  life, 
—  they  mean  labor,  self-denial,  endurance,  the 
long  and  hard  struggle  for  independence,  for 
the  possession  of  what  keeps  us  from  beggary, 
from  sneers  and  taunts  and  kicks.  Envy,  re- 
sentment, and  hatred  are  painful  feelings,  and 
if  virtue  permitted  us  to  entertain  them,  wisdom 
would  forbid.  The  saddest  truth  is  better  than 
the  most  pleasant  lie.  In  the  best  poetry  is 
found  the  most  perfect  expression  of  the  purest 
truth.  Truth  is  most  honored  when  't  is  matched 
with  deeds.  The  most  useful  things  are  those 
which  make  life  good  and  fair.  He  who  is 
familiar  with  the  best  that  has  been  written 
thinks  modestly  of  himself;  he  does  not  mis- 
take his  crotchet  for  a  panacea,  or  imagine  that 
irritation  is  enlightenment. 

The  dogged  will  to  excel  effects  its  purpose. 
The  intellect  which  analyzes  and  weakens  all 
else  is  powerless  in  the  presence  of  feeling; 
what  we  truly  love  is  our  very  life  and  resists 
the  destructive  force  of  the  critical  faculty. 

The  mind  is  drawn  out  and  made  capable  of 
knowledge  when  it  is  aglow  with  emotion,  as 
the  smith  forges  the  metal  into  shape  when  it  is 
at  white  heat.  From  every  flower  genius  sucks 


VIEWS  OF  EDUCATION.  6 1 

its  sweet,  but  bears  within  itself  the  power  to 
make  it  honey. 

There  are  books  whose  disappearance  would 
impoverish  the  whole  race.  Keep  striving ; 
God  alone  knows  what  sweet  and  helpful  work 
thou  mayst  be  appointed  to  do. 

"  In  nature  there  's  no  blemish  but  the  mind," 
No  beauty  but  the  mind  doth  make  it  fair. 

Good  fortune  is  the  happy  ordering  of  circum- 
stance, making  knowledge  and  virtue  easy. 
In  the  company  of  noble  minds  we  grow  strong 
and  serene.  Power  to  think  is  like  a  mother's 
breast  —  the  more  it  is  appealed  to,  the  more 
abundantly  it  yields.  Where  emphasis  is  needed 
the  writer  has  failed ;  emphasis  is  vulgar.  The 
superlative  is  false  style.  The  secret  of  style  is 
high  thought  and  pure  feeling.  Right  expres- 
sion of  true  thought  is  final.  "  Ideas, "  says 
Rivarol,  "  make  the  round  of  the  world;  they 
pass  from  tongue  to  tongue,  from  century  to 
century,  until  they  clothe  themselves  in  a  liv- 
ing and  luminous  phrase  and  become  the  pat- 
rimony of  mankind."  It  takes  half  a  lifetime  to 
learn  to  know  the  studies  we  should  neglect. 
The  higher  thy  gifts,  the  easier  it  is  for  thee  to 
go  astray.  Agree  with  thyself;  with  another, 
agreement  can,  at  the  best,  be  but  superficial. 
"  The  temple  of  literary  fame,"  says  D'Alem- 


62  THINGS  OF  THE  MIND, 

bert,  "  is  the  home  of  the  dead  who  dwelt  not 
there  when  they  were  alive,  and  of  a  few  of  the 
living  who  for  the  most  part  shall  be  thrust 
forth  as  soon  as  they  are  dead."  Memory 
obeys  the  heart;  where  there  is  love,  there  is 
no  forgetfulness.  We  are  worth  what  our  love 
is  worth.  The  perennial  charm  of  erotic  writ- 
ing witnesses  to  the  feebleness  of  reason  ;  man's 
thought  circles  forever  and  forever  about  an 
animal  instinct,  meant  not  for  the  happiness  of 
the  individual,  but  for  the  propagation  of  the 
race.  "  Not  the  morning  nor  the  evening  star," 
says  .^Eneas  Sylvius,  "  is  so  fair  as  the  wisdom 
which  is  learned  by  the  study  of  literature." 

Rest  in  thy  weary,  helpless  hour ; 
So  shall  the  good  have  double  power. 

We  can  know  so  little;  let  us  at  least  not  be 
afraid  to  learn.  He  is  noble  who  is  inspired 
by  thoughts  which  mean  blessings  for  men. 
What  is  worthless  in  life  and  literature,  we  easily 
learn  to  know;  what  is  best  only  patient  labor 
and  long  experience  will  teach  us. 

Whether  education  bestows  power  or  merely 
gives  freer  and  more  varied  action  to  original 
endowments  is  a  question  of  words.  It  brings 
into  play  faculties  which  without  it  do  not  exist 
or  are  in  abeyance. 

Our  highest   yearnings    mark  the  degree  of 


VIEWS  OF  EDUCATION.  63 

culture  we  have  attained ;  the  rude  desire  pleas- 
ure, wealth,  and  notoriety,  the  enlightened  long 
for  truth  and  love. 

In  the  best  poetry  is  found  the  highest  ex- 
pression of  the  deepest  truth.  Socrates  looked 
upon  himself  simply  as  one  who  took  interest 
in  noble-minded  and  high-hearted  young  men, 
and  the  favorite  disciple  of  the  blessed  Saviour 
was  a  pure  and  generous  youth,  who  has  given 
to  the  world  the  deepest  insight  into  the  Mas- 
ter's spirit  and  teaching.  The  thought  of  the 
books  I  have  not  read,  and  which  like  unknown 
friends  are  waiting  for  me,  keeps  me  young. 
The  ideal  of  peace,  of  repose,  which  Words- 
worth calls  the  central  feeling  of  all  happiness, 
is  that  of  the  weak  or  weary.  Strong  and  eager 
men  prefer  almost  any  kind  of  existence  to  the 
tranquil  flow  of  uneventful  days. 

Haste  is  the  mark  of  immaturity.  He  who 
is  master  of  his  tools  and  certain  of  himself 
knows  that  he  is  able,  and  neither  hurries  nor 
worries,  but  works  and  waits.  As  what  one  can 
lift  or  bear  depends  on  strength  and  training 
of  body,  so  what  one  can  understand  or  appre- 
ciate depends  on  vigor  and  discipline  of  mind. 
Thou  wouldst  pour  truth  into  the  hearts  of  men, 
but  wouldst  thou  pour  water  into  a  sieve?  Thy 
doctrines  will  be  of  little  help  unless  the  heart 
and  mind  be  made  whole.  There  are  no  sadder 


64  THINGS   OF  THE  MIND. 

words  than  these :  whiskey  and  women.  They 
are  the  epitaph  which  should  be  written  on  so 
many  thousand  tombstones  on  which  only  lies 
are  engraved.  World-moving  ideas  spring  from 
single  minds  and  never  from  the  deliberations 
of  many;  and  the  men  of  genius  from  whom 
we  receive  this  deeper  insight  into  the  nature  of 
things^  dwell  habitually  in  thought  with  what  is 
permanent,  eternal,  and  infinite.  Herbert  Spen- 
cer utters  a  caution  "  against  striving  too  strenu- 
ously to  reach  the  ideal. "  In  other  words,  he 
bids  the  young  beware  lest  perchance  they  be- 
come too  earnest  in  their  efforts  to  think  highly, 
to  act  nobly,  to  love  purely,  to  believe  sincerely 
and  to  hope  steadfastly.  Habitual  intercourse 
with  nature  inspires  the  love  of  life,  and  it  rec- 
onciles to  death;  for  everywhere  in  earth  and 
air,  there  is  fulness  of  life,  content  and  blest 
within  itself;  and  when  death  comes,  it  comes 
like  sleep  to  tired  children  who,  having  played 
the  whole  day  long,  sink  quietly  to  rest.  We 
cannot  have  full  sympathy  with  our  fellows,  if 
we  have  none  with  nature  and  with  lower  ani- 
mals. "  Sad,  indeed,"  says  Herbert  Spencer, 
"  is  it  to  see  how  men  occupy  themselves  with 
trivialities  and  are  indifferent  to  the  grandest 
phenomena,  —  care  not  to  understand  the  archi- 
tecture of  the  heavens,  but  are  deeply  interested 
in  some  contemptible  controversy  about  the 


VIEWS   OF  EDUCATION.  65 

intrigues  of  Mary  Queen  of  Scots ;  are  learn- 
edly critical  over  a  Greek  ode,  and  pass  by 
without  a  glance  that  grand  epic  written  by  the 
finger  of  God  on  the  strata  of  the  earth.'* 

He  who  writes  need  not,  but  he  who  publishes 
must  think  of  a  reader;  and  his  hope  is  that 
some  of  the  pleasure  and  strength  his  thoughts 
have  given  to  himself  will  be  communicated  to 
others ;  for  if  to  him  they  have  not  been  a  source 
of  light  and  joy,  in  printing  them  he  is  but  a 
coiner  and  passer  of  counterfeit  money. 


CHAPTER   III. 

VIEWS   OF  EDUCATION. 

'Tis  in  the  advance  of  individual  minds, 
That  the  slow  crowd  should  ground  their  expectation, 
Eventually  to  follow. 

BROWNING. 

I. 

THE  popular  idea  of  education  is  that  it  is 
a  process  whereby  the  young  are  fash- 
ioned into  money-earning  machines.  Whether 
the  machine  is  called  an  artisan,  a  merchant, 
a  lawyer,  or  a  physician  is  of  minor  importance. 
The  ideal  of  the  State  is  good  citizenship,  the 
ideal  of  the  Church  is  Christian  obedience; 
but  where  shall  we  find  a  school  which  simply 
aims  to  bring  all  the  scholar's  endowments 
into  free,  full,  and  harmonious  play?  Who 
understands  that  man  is  more  than  a  money- 
earning  machine,  more  than  a  citizen,  more 
than  a  member  of  a  church,  being  nothing  less 
than  a  son  of  God,  who  is  infinitely  strong, 
all-knowing,  all-loving,  all-fair?  Go  boldly 
forward  along  the  path  thy  inmost  heart  feels 
to  have  been  made  for  thee,  nor  stop  to  ask 


VIEWS  OF  EDUCATION,  6/ 

whither  it  lead.  The  way  is  thine,  the  end  is 
in  God's  keeping.  Education  is  emancipa- 
tion; it  breaks  down  the  prison  walls  in  which 
the  soul  is  immured,  takes  it  into  the  light, 
and  bids  it  soar  through  the  boundless  universe, 
upborne  on  the  wings  of  truth  and  love. 

Every  organism  holds  within  itself  the  seed 
of  something  better  than  itself,  for  the  infinite 
God  lives  within  and  broods  over  all.  To 
remain  stationary  is  hardly  better  than  death; 
imitation  is  a  kind  of  servitude;  the  unfolding 
and  upbuilding  of  one's  own  being  is  life  and 
liberty.  Political  liberty  is  not  freedom;  it 
is,  at  the  best,  but  opportunity  to  make  one's 
self  free.  An  enlightened  mind  is  a  sanctuary 
where  no  tryant  may  enter.  There  the  Eternal 
stands  guard.  He  who  leads  the  mind  to  new 
worlds  or  to  new  ways  of  contemplating  God 
and  the  universe  is  a  general  benefactor,  whose 
life-enlarging  influence  all  who  think  shall 
feel.  The  tendency  which  is  in  things  and 
times  requires  the  shaping  and  guiding  hand 
of  great  personalities  to  turn  it  to  human  pur- 
poses and  ends.  An  original  force  is  from 
God  and  without  inner  limitation.  Its  bound- 
aries can  be  fixed  only  by  its  environment. 
Repression  inevitably  turns  to  evil,  and  the 
teacher  does  best  work  when  he  wisely  stimu- 
lates and  directs  the  energies  of  his  pupils. 


or  THE 
iCFNIVERSITY 


68  THINGS  OF  THE  MIND. 

The  best  school  is  that  which  best  helps  the 
free  and  healthful  development  of  each  one's 
individual  endowments;  which  best  enables 
the  youth  to  become  such  a  man  as  God  and 
nature  intend  him  to  be,  not  such  a  one  as 
another's  whim  would  make  him.  He  whom 
the  wanderer's  heart  drives  to  far  lands  sad- 
dens his  friends  who  love  to  stay  at  home;  he 
whom  a  divine  thirst  for  truth  impels  ever 
into  new  regions  of  thought  grieves  his  near 
ones  whom  conventional  opinions  satisfy.  To 
become  an  ethical  fact,  to  have  moral  worth, 
knowledge  must  pass  into  action.  When 
scholars  become  doers  the  new  order  will 
begin.  In  the  presence  of  whatever  system 
of  thought,  ask  yourself  whether  it  can  be 
made  a  rule  of  life;  for  life,  and  not  specula- 
tion, is  the  test  of  truth. 

Our  educators  take  advantage  of  the  igno- 
rance and  inexperience  of  the  young  to  draw 
them  away  from  true  ideals.  They  educate 
with  a  view  to  institutions,  and  not  with  a 
view  to  the  Eternal.  Their  idea  of  truth  is 
that  it  is  a  conventional  something;  their  God 
is  current  opinion.  The  preservation  of  insti- 
tutions can  never  be  the  end  for  which  we 
educate.  On  the  contrary,  a  right  education 
would  form  a  race  which  would  create  for 
itself  a  higher  and  nobler  environment  than 


VIEWS   OF  EDUCATION.  69 

any  we  know.  Individuality  of  power  and  cul- 
ture is  the  ideal  each  one  should  strive  to 
attain.  Each  soul,  worth  calling  a  soul,  comes 
into  this  world  unlike  all  other  souls;  and  the 
urgency  of  God  and  nature  within  it  cries  out : 
Be  thyself,  not  another.  Do  the  work,  speak 
the  word  thou  wast  born  to  do  and  speak.  God 
makes  each  one;  the  inner  voice  each  one 
hears  is  God's;  become  God's  man,  and  let 
God's  word  find  embodiment  in  the  air  thou 
coinest  into  human  speech.  Be  not  a  machine 
to  utter  again  what  others  have  said;  be  an 
aboriginal  soul,  alive  in  God,  acting  and  speak- 
ing from  out  the  infinite  source  of  all  things. 
It  is  not  conceivable  that  God  should  wish  to 
dwarf  or  paralyze  human  activity.  Let  no 
lesser  power,  then,  bid  us  keep  reason  and 
conscience  in  abeyance. 

Public  opinion  is  a  tyrant,  who  would  make 
men  cowards  and  hypocrites ;  and  it  is  so  easy 
to  make  them  cowards  and  hypocrites.  That 
which  dwarfs  or  darkens  our  being,  though  it 
should  bring  boundless  wealth  or  endless  fame, 
is  simply  evil.  For  what  life-period  do  we 
educate?  Childhood  and  youth  are  sacrificed 
to  manhood,  manhood  to  old  age,  which,  for 
the  few  who  reach  it,  is  made  miserable  by 
this  vicious  philosophy.  Strong,  free,  and 
joyous  self-activity,  during  the  whole  course 


70  THINGS  OF   THE  MIND. 

of  life,  can  alone  develop  high,  gracious  and 
noble  men  and  women.  Whoever  or  whatever 
impedes  thought  and  love  is  evil.  When  once 
we  accept  repression  as  a  legitimate  principle, 
there  is  no  degradation  to  which  we  may  not 
descend.  Uniformity  and  equality  are  pos- 
sible only  when  the  play  of  man's  nobler 
faculties  is  hindered.  Why  should  we  think 
it  desirable  to  make  all  men  alike,  since  God 
makes  them  unlike,  and  since  the  more  truly 
they  are  alive,  the  greater  their  unlikeness 
becomes?  Passion  is  the  surging  of  life's 
current,  and  the  effort  to  weaken  or  destroy  it 
is  an  attempt  on  life.  The  wise  educator  seeks 
not  to  lessen  passion,  but  to  increase  the  intel- 
lectual and  moral  power  by  which  it  may  be 
controlled. 

Life  is  the  supreme  good,  and  whatever 
lowers  or  impoverishes  it  is  evil.  God  cannot 
place  himself  above  truth,  and  a  real  mind 
would  not  suffer  dictation  from  a  parliament 
of  mankind.  Live  not  in  a  great  city,  for  a 
great  city  is  a  mill  which  grinds  all  grain  into 
flour.  Go  there  to  get  money  or  to  preach  re- 
pentance, but  go  not  there  to  make  thyself  a 
nobler  man.  The  tendency  to  place  educa- 
tion—  elementary  education  at  least  —  almost 
wholly  in  the  hands  of  women  is  wrong.  The 
educator's  secret  lies  in  the  power  to  stimu- 


VIEWS  OF  EDUCATION.  Jl 

late,  and  this  power  man  possesses  in  a  very 
much  greater  degree  than  woman.  He  is 
the  active,  she  the  passive  principle.  The 
result  of  the  social  evolution,  of  the  reign  of 
democracy,  seems  to  be  the  destruction  of  the 
finer  varieties  and  the  formation  of  a  homo- 
geneous mass  of  coarse  fibre.  The  making 
use  of  human  beings  as  means  rather  than 
ends  is  immoral.  In  this  lies  the  condemna- 
tion of  our  industrialism. 

The  decisive  inequalities  are  those  of  mind 
and  heart.  The  great  dividing  line  is  that 
which  separates  the  wise  from  the  foolish.  All 
work  is  like  a  task  set  a  child;  its  chief  worth 
lies  in  the  exercise  it  compels,  in  the  educa- 
tion it  gives.  The  truth  we  seek,  more  than 
that  which  we  possess,  rouses  and  educates  our 
powers.  The  temper  in  which  we  face  the  in- 
telligible universe,  rather  than  the  power  with 
which  we  deal  with  its  problems,  is  the  test 
of  mental  character.  Look  at  the  world  in  the 
pure  light  of  thy  own  reason,  and  not  through 
the  medium  of  books  and  systems.  He  whose 
superiority  rests  upon  inner  excellence  may 
say  to  his  fellowmen:  Provide  for  me  while  I 
feed  your  minds  and  souls.  To  do  work  one 
loves  is  to  be  happy.  Blessed  is  he  who,  hav- 
ing found  the  highest  thing  he  is  able  to  do, 
gives  his  life  to  the  task. 


72  THINGS  OF  THE  MIND. 

All  opinions  may  be  entertained  except 
those  which  weaken  and  dishearten.  The  test 
of  the  worth  of  a  living  faith  in  God  is  the 
strength  it  gives,  the  courage  it  inspires.  The 
objection  to  culture  is  that  it  opens  up  a  world 
of  delightful  views,  in  which  we  rest,  feeling 
that  action  is  vain.  If  our  whole  nature  con- 
sciously bathed  in  the  being  of  God  we  should 
not  only  be  purer  and  holier,  but  we  should 
have  more  talent,  more  genius,  more  ability  of 
every  kind.  To  believe  this  is  something;  to 
know  and  feel  it  is  joy,  strength,  and  freedom. 
To  make  the  mind  the  mirror  of  all  that  is,  is 
not  enough;  we  must  blend  with  all  that  is, 
love  it,  recreate  it,  and  make  it  our  own. 
They  who  bring  the  noblest  gifts  bring  them 
to  men  too  dull  to  know  their  worth;  and 
years,  centuries  sometimes,  pass  before  the 
divinely  great  are  understood.  An  original 
sinner  more  readily  finds  pardon  than  an 
original  thinker.  What  we  are  decides  our 
tastes,  —  it  is  well  with  the  mole  in  its 
burrow,  it  is  well  with  the  swine  in  its  trough. 
The  crowd  are  willing  to  proscribe  the  culture 
and  virtue  which  are  a  reproach  to  them;  their 
hatred  is  a  form  of  envy.  Men  are  not  equal ; 
and  were  they  so,  there  would  be  no  hope  of 
better  things.  The  multitude  move,  and  have 
always  moved,  in  a  world  of  low  thoughts  and 


VIEWS  OF  EDUCATION.  73 

desires;  and  the  few  who,  daring  to  be  unlike 
the  many,  rise  to  higher  modes  of  life,  are  the 
benefactors  and  civilizers  by  whom  progress 
is  made  possible.  The  doctrine  of  equality  is 
a  prejudice  of  the  weak  and  ignorant,  whose 
conceit  persuades  them  that  none  are  strong 
and  wise.  The  best  are  corrupted  and  dis- 
heartened by  the  crowd  who  have  neither 
knowledge  nor  courage.  Whatever  the  com- 
pound the  chemical  elements  are  the  same; 
and  among  savages  and  barbarians  the  indi- 
vidual is  but  an  atom,  an  undistinguished  part 
of  a  homogeneous  mass.  Hence  the  measure 
of  the  progress  of  the  individual  is  the  firm- 
ness and  distinctness  with  which  he  stands  for 
himself  alone. 

The  only  right  opposition  to  inequality  is 
universal  opportunity  for  the  best  education. 
The  fundamental  law  is  the  promotion  of  God- 
given  endowments;  and  in  a  wisely  ordered 
State  there  should  be  those  whose  office  would 
require  them  to  seek  for  the  best  talent,  and 
to  give  it  the  best  nurture,  that  no  original 
power  might  be  hindered  from  unfolding  itself. 
Love  of  company  is  a  chief  obstacle  to  im- 
provement. We  cannot  remain  alone;  and 
when  we  are  together  we  bore,  stupefy,  and 
corrupt  one  another.  We  meet  to  sink  into 
the  lower  life  of  eating  and  drinking,  of  gossip 


74  THINGS  OF  THE  MIND. 

and  play.  To  be  fit  to  be  alone  is  the  first 
condition  of  progress.  Another  obstacle  is 
the  labor  to  which  the  multitude  are  con- 
demned. Their  work  is  like  the  alcohol  and 
tobacco  it  enables  them  to  buy;  it  is  a  deaden- 
ing of  sensation,  a  refuge  from  consciousness, 
a  partial  escape  from  life.  Thus  the  many 
are  bestialized  that  the  few  may  keep  company, 
eat,  drink,  and  dawdle.  Were  there  now  some 
inspired  hero  to  go  through  the  world  re- 
uttering  the  Psalmist's  cry,  "In  my  indigna- 
tion I  said,  every  man  is  a  liar,"  the  echo  from 
all  hearts  would  be:  We  know  it.  But  only 
fools  tell  the  whole  truth.  Even  the  pious 
will  never  understand  that  it  is  better  men 
should  lose  faith  than  that  a  lie  be  told.  He 
who  should  stand  with  perfectly  frank  open 
heartedness  before  the  public  would  now  be 
looked  upon  as  lacking  mental  balance.  He 
would  be  like  one  who,  single  and  defenceless, 
presents  himself  to  an  armed  and  angry  mob. 

Is  it  not  the  tendency  of  democracy  to  make 
men  insincere  and  hypocritical,  since,  when 
the  law  makes  all  equal,  the  able  resort  to 
cunning  and  deceit  to  assert  their  superiority? 
What  the  barons  accomplished  by  brute  force, 
our  successful  men  reach  by  smartness.  Genius 
is  best  sense,  and  its  essential  quality  is  sin- 
cerity. It  is  fidelity  to  fact,  to  the  thing  seen 


VIEWS   OF  EDUCATION.  75 

and  felt.  It  is  the  great  educator;  and 
teachers  who  lack  genius  do  their  best  work 
when  they  bring  their  pupils  into  sympathetic 
communion  with  the  masterpieces  of  creative 
minds.  When  a  youth  first  gives  his  heart  to 
some  hero,  who  to  him  seems  Godlike,  he 
enters  the  vestibule  of  the  temple  of  culture. 
How  many  of  the  best  and  bravest  has  not 
Plutarch  made  conscious  of  the  divinity  within 
them!  The  lives  of  warriors  —  "of  those  who 
waged  contention  with  their  time's  decay  "  — 
are  alone  worthy  to  be  written.  Let  popular 
men  sink  into  oblivion  with  the  populace  that 
made  them. 

The  worth  of  striving  depends  not  upon  the 
success,  but  upon  the  fidelity  and  perseverance 
with  which  we  continue  to  hope  and  labor. 
The  stayer  wins,  whether  the  weapons  be  brawn 
or  brains.  Intellectual  insight  is  the  purest 
ray  that  falls  from  heaven,  and  they  who  seek 
to  break  or  obscure  its  light  with  the  grime 
and  smoke  of  prejudice  and  passion  are  the 
devil's  minions.  Knowledge  problems  are  but 
a  small  part  of  education.  Man  is  not  pure 
intellect,  — he  is  life;  and  life  is  power,  good- 
ness, wisdom,  joy,  beauty,  health,  yearning, 
faith,  hope,  love,  action.  Make  your  man  a 
mere  science  machine,  and  what  more  is  he 
than  an  animal  that  measures,  weighs,  and  cal- 


76  THINGS  OF   THE  MIND. 

culates?  When  you  have  told  me  all  that  is 
known  about  the  atoms  and  stars,  you  have 
brought  to  my  notice  but  lifeless  facts,  whereas 
I  crave  for  truth, — truth  athrill  with  life. 
The  perfect  man  is  not  merely  a  knower  and 
thinker,  but  he  is  also  one  who  lays  hold  on 
life  and  does  as  well  as  he  thinks. 

The  test  of  the  value  of  learning  is  its  effect 
upon  the  conduct  of  life.  There  is  a  right 
and  a  wrong  faith,  but  what  we  'believe  deter- 
mines character  less  than  the  force  and  in- 
tensity with  which  we  believe.  Hope  may 
quicken  or  may  deaden  the  soul.  He  whose 
main  hope  is  that  he  shall  die  rich  has  begun 
to  dig  the  grave  of  his  nobler  faculties.  What 
we  yearn  for  is  the  test  of  our  civilization.  If 
material  ends  are  our  ideals,  we  are  no  better 
than  barbarians.  When  we  are  unable  to 
believe  in  the  divinity  of  love,  the  source  of 
life  runs  dry  within  us,  and  our  life  withers 
like  a  tree  whose  root  has  been  cut.  Love 
beautifies,  hate  distorts  the  object  we  contem- 
plate. That  man  is  God's  son  is  a  noble  faith, 
but  one  which  daily  contact  with  human  beings 
tends  to  destroy;  and  they  who,  in  spite  of 
disenchanting  experience,  continue  really  to 
hold  this  faith,  live  the  life  of  Christ.  The 
liberty  which  is  favorable  to  high  and  heroic 
personalities  is  the  best.  Priceless  things  alone 


VIEWS   OF  EDUCATION  77 

are  good, — genius,  holiness,  heroism,  faith, 
hope,  and  love.  What  has  a  price  has  small 
value.  The  past  was  not  what  it  appears  to  us 
to  have  been;  the  future  will  not  be  like  any- 
thing we  can  imagine;  the  present  is  ours, 
and  we  should  use  it  to  do  the  highest  which 
through  us  is  possible. 

An  encyclopaedia  is  not  the  book  a  wise 
student  chooses  for  purposes  of  self-culture; 
a  man  whose  brain-cells  are  stored  with  innu- 
merable facts  is  not  the  kind  of  teacher  an 
enlightened  educator  selects  for  the  training 
of  young  minds.  The  teacher's  value  lies 
more  in  what  he  is  than  in  what  he  knows ;  and 
book-worms  are,  as  a  rule,  incompetent  educa- 
tors. The  sublimest  emotions  take  us  nearer 
to  God,  to  the  inner  heart  of  being,  than  intel- 
lectual views.  Hence  literature,  poetry  above 
all,  the  child  of  the  exalted  moods  which  the 
sympathetic  contemplation  of  the  Infinite  and 
of  nature  creates,  has  greater  educational  value 
than  science.  God  and  his  universe  are  more 
than  all  our  facts.  Wouldst  thou  go  to  the 
relief  of  the  unhappy?  Give  them  courage, 
faith,  hope,  and  love,  —  not  money,  but  a  new 
heart. 

In  literature  and  in  works  of  science  there 
is  a  revelation  of  the  best  thoughts  and  the 
most  accurate  knowledge  the  greatest  minds 


78  THINGS  OF   THE  MIND. 

have  possessed;  but  the  revelation  is  for  those 
alone  who  make  themselves  capable  of  receiv- 
ing it,  — from  the  rest  it  is  hidden.  In  litera- 
ture, as  in  all  things  spiritual,  quality  is 
everything,  quantity  goes  for  nothing.  A 
phrase  outweighs  whole  volumes.  He  who 
seeks  to  become  wise  should  have  leisure,  and 
often  be  alone  with  the  noble  dead,  who  for 
enlightened  minds  live  again  as  friends  and 
helpers.  From  the  day  Alexander  crossed  the 
Hellespont  to  conquer  the  world  until  now, 
superior  intelligence  and  courage  have  tri- 
umphed over  numbers.  Majorities  do  not 
rule;  they  are  but  weapons  in  the  hands  of  a 
wise  and  high-spirited  or  a  cunning  and  corrupt 
minority.  They  who  feel  the  need  of  belong- 
ing to  the  majority  know  not  the  infinite  worth 
of  truth  and  love. 

The  imperfectly  educated  mind  is  fond  of 
controversy,  as  rude  natures  take  delight  in 
quarrels.  When  a  thought  comes,  fasten  it 
with  the  pen,  as  you  hang  a  picture  on  the 
wall.  Thou  art  taller  than  I?  I  will  plant  a 
grain  of  maize,  whose  tassel  in  three  months 
shall  overtop  my  head;  but  I  am  more  than 
the  stalk.  Art  stronger?  A  yearling  bull  is 
too,  yet  I  am  more  than  it.  Hast  higher 
place?  So  has  yonder  eagle  on  his  jutting 
crag,  but  mind  outsoars  the  reach  of  wings. 


VIEWS   OF  EDUCATION-.  79 

Art  wiser  and  nobler?  I  bow  to  thee  and  am 
thy  servant;  be  thou  my  master.  If  thy  influ- 
ence be  evil,  desire  that  it  perish;  if  it  be 
good,  the  wise  and  virtuous  will  wish  it  to 
survive.  He  whom  notoriety  intoxicates  is  a 
vulgar  fellow;  the  love  of  fame  itself  is  an 
infirmity;  Godlike  is  he  alone  who  lives  for 
truth  and  love.  The  multiplicity  and  empti- 
ness of  books  bring  concise  and  pregnant  writ- 
ing into  favor, —  as  the  increase  of  knowledge, 
rendering  the  compassing  of  it  by  one  man, 
even  in  a  single  science,  impossible,  drives 
the  learned  into  specialties.  The  thoughts 
which  as  we  write  them  seem  warm  and  glow- 
ing as  the  heart's  blood,  look  cold  and  dead 
on  the  printed  page.  They  are  like  guests 
who  still  remain  when  the  song  and  dance  are 
done,  when  the  flowers  have  faded  and  the 
lights  are  out. 

An  important  end  of  education  is  to  render 
us  conscious  of  our  ignorance;  for  this  con- 
sciousness will  impel  us  to  seek  knowledge. 
A  new  truth  which  offends  our  habitual  think- 
ing hurts  like  a  blow.  It  is  as  when  we  heed- 
lessly strike  the  foot  against  a  stone,  and  grow 
indignant,  not  because  we  were  careless,  but 
because  it  was  lying  there.  Culture  alone  can 
overcome  this  unwillingness  to  accept  un- 
pleasant truths.  All  things  that  are  done  are 


8O  THINGS  OF   THE  MIND. 

done  in  time,  and  our  ill  success  is  often  due 
to  the  belief  that  we  can  accomplish  at  once 
what  only  time  can  bring  about.  The  best 
work  is  done  by  hard  work.  All  men  have  the 
right  to  know  whatever  is  true,  to  love  what- 
ever is  fair,  and  to  do  whatever  is  good ;  and 
the  aim  and  end  of  education  is  to  help  them 
to  all  this.  We  all  live  in  the  midst  of  a 
paradise  which  might  be  ours,  but  which  for 
most  of  us  is  hopelessly  lost.  They  who 
make  pastimes  life  occupations,  whatever  their 
titles  and  possessions,  are  but  vulgar  triflers. 
When  an  idea  or  a  sentiment  takes  hold  of  a 
people  and  gains  such  sway  as  to  impel  them 
to  heroic  enterprise,  it  exalts,  ennobles,  and 
civilizes;  it  issues  in  deeds  which  mark  his- 
toric epochs,  and  remain  as  imperishable  evi- 
dence of  the  creative  force  of  enthusiastic 
faith  in  the  worth  of  truth  and  love.  In  indi- 
viduals also  the  purifying  and  strengthening 
influence  of  persistent  devotion  to  intellectual 
and  moral  ideals  manifests  itself  in  new  power 
of  thought  and  fresh  delight  in  life. 

Suggestion  is  an  educational  force  of  the 
first  importance;  for  the  mind  is  quick  to 
respond  to  intimations  rightly  given,  but  grows 
listless  and  inattentive  when  truth  is  made 
plain.  The  suggester  excites  curiosity  and  sets 
reason  and  imagination  to  work,  while  the 


VIEWS  OF  EDUCATION.  8 1 

demonstrator  puts  us  to  sleep.  Prove  as  little 
as  possible,  but  set  the  young  dogs  on  the 
scent  of  what  you  would  have  them  run  down. 
Whatever  starts  the  play  of  the  intellectual 
imagination  is  profitable  and  delightful.  The 
pleasure  and  instruction  we  find  in  a  poem  or 
a  painting,  a  building  or  an  oration,  are  due 
largely  to  the  power  with  which  they  compel 
the  mind  to  exercise  itself.  He  who  pro- 
vokes multitudes,  who  forces  them  to  recognize 
that  their  conceit  is  but  a  form  of  ignorance, 
hypocrisy,  or  vulgarity,  is  a  benefactor,  but  the 
adulators  of  the  people  are  confidence  men. 
Where  there  is  right  education  the  future  need 
not  be  considered;  for  each  hour  brings  its 
reward  of  fairer  and  richer  life.  The  maxim 
"  Sufficient  for  the  day  is  the  evil  thereof " 
applies  also  to  the  good.  Do  now  the  best  thou 
canst  do.  This  is  thy  whole  business,  and  the 
rest  may  be  left  to  God. 


ii. 


IT  is  easy  to  speak  lightly  of  words,  as 
though  they  were  mere  idle  sound;  but  an 
opinion  or  a  belief  which  has  once  gotten 
itself  rightly  barricaded  behind  verbal  breast- 
works, will  withstand  the  onslaughts  of  armies 
and  of  centuries.  Writing  about  books  is,  for 

6 


82  THINGS  OF  THE   MIND. 

the  most  part,  idle  writing;  for  each  one  must 
discover  for  himself  the  book  or  books  he 
needs,  and  it  is  sufficient  that  he  know  there 
are  but  a  few  that  are  good.  Books  are  saved 
from  oblivion  by  quality  of  thought  and  style. 
Without  this  even  the  most  learned  and  pro- 
found are  soon  superseded  or  forgotten;  for 
the  learning  of  one  age  becomes  the  ignorance 
of  another;  and  true  thoughts  badly  expressed 
pass  into  the  possession  of  those  who  know 
how  to  give  them  proper  embodiment,  just  as 
the  story  becomes  his  who  tells  it  best.  The 
best  books  are  praised  by  many,  read  by  some, 
and  studied  by  few.  The  inventor  of  the 
telephone  sets  tens  of  thousands  talking  to 
one  another  from  a  distance,  but  their  talk  is 
the  same  old  story  they  have  been  telling  face 
to  face  these  many  centuries.  Never  shall 
mortal  make  a  machine  which  will  teach  them 
to  think  nobler  thoughts  or  to  say  diviner 
things.  If  the  bodily  eye  needs  much  training 
that  it  may  see  rightly,  distinguish  accurately 
among  the  myriad  forms  and  colors,  how  shall 
we  hope,  without  discipline  and  habitual 
effort,  to  acquire  justness  of  intellectual  view, 
ability  to  see  things  as  they  are? 

A  man's  accidents,  such  as  wealth  or  posi- 
tion, may  give  him  importance  while  he  is 
alive;  but  once  he  is  dead,  only  what  was  part 


VIEWS   OF  EDUCATION.  83 

of  himself,  as  his  genius  or  his  virtue,  can 
make  him  interesting.  The  craving  for  re- 
cognition should  be  resisted  as  we  resist  an 
appetite  for  strong  drink.  To  look  for  praise 
or  place  is  to  work  in  the  spirit  of  a  hireling. 
That  alone  is  good  for  me  which  gives  me 
freedom  and  opportunity  to  lead  my  own  life, 
to  upbuild  the  being  which  is  myself.  Since 
human  power  is  limited,  that  which  is  spent 
in  one  direction  lessens  the  amount  which 
might  be  used  in  another.  The  nerve  force 
the  sensualist  consumes  in  indulgence,  the 
higher  man  evolves  into  thought  and  love. 
Favor  rather  than  opposition  hinders  develop- 
ment of  mind  and  character.  If  self  culture 
is  our  aim,  let  us  be  thankful  for  foes,  and 
deem  ourselves  fortunate  when  the  world  per- 
mits us  to  pass  unnoticed.  Should  God  lead 
me  to  a  higher  world  and  offer  whatever  I 
might  crave,  I  should  ask  for  the  clearest 
intellectual  insight  and  the  purest  love. 

Half  of  all  that  is  printed  is  harmful,  and  of 
the  remainder  more  than  half  is  superfluous. 
It  is  a  problem  whether  the  daily  newspaper 
will  not  eventually  submerge  both  intellect 
and  conscience.  They  who  live  for  truth  and 
love  should  renounce  all  hope  of  financial, 
political,  and  social  success;  for  those  whose 
home  is  in  higher  spheres  are  not  recognized, 


84  THINGS  OF  THE  MIND. 

and  should  not  care  to  be  recognized,  by  the 
dwellers  in  lower  worlds.  There  is  a  kind  of 
talent  which  needs  encouragement,  but  it  is  of 
the  sort  which  is  hopelessly  inferior.  A  God- 
like power  thrives  most  when  men  are  heedless 
of  its  presence;  and  the  best  work  has  been 
done  by  those  who  received  little  praise  while 
they  were  living,  and  who  cared  little  what 
should  be  said  of  them  when  dead.  Where  the 
individual  dwindles,  man  becomes,  not  more 
and  more,  but  less  and  less;  for  man  exists 
only  in  the  individual.  Let  not  thy  study  be 
to  provide  for  thy  present  wants  or  whims,  but 
to  do  the  absolute  best  God  has  made  thee 
capable  of  doing.  Talent  is  inborn.  It  un- 
folds itself,  however,  only  under  certain  con- 
ditions. To  provide  these  conditions  is  the 
business  of  the  educator,  and  whatever  else  he 
may  do  is  harmful.  He  who  has  gained  a 
higher  point  of  view,  looks  with  a  kind  of 
hopeless  sadness  upon  those  whose  eyes  are 
blinded  by  ignorance  or  passion. 

In  whoever  is  destined  to  achieve  distinction 
the  spirit  of  discontent  lives  like  a  god.  "To 
accustom  mankind,"  says  Joubert,  "to  pleasures 
which  depend  neither  upon  the  bodily  appe- 
tites nor  upon  money,  by  giving  them  a  taste 
for  the  things  of  the  mind,  seems  to  me  the 
one  proper  fruit  which  nature  has  meant  our 


VIEWS  OF  EDUCATION.  85 

literary  productions  to  have."  Early  ripeness, 
long  life,  and  youthful -minded  old  age  are  the 
conditions  required  for  the  best  development 
of  man's  powers.  They  who  see  things  in  a 
new  light  influence  opinion,  but  mere  makers 
of  syllogisms  and  propounders  of  arguments 
speak  and  write  to  no  purpose.  To  have 
value,  knowledge  must  be  intelligence,  and  not 
merely  erudition.  It  is  for  the  mind,  not  the 
mind  for  it. 

The  philosopher,  poet,  or  man  of  science  who 
says  he  has  no  time  to  waste  in  getting  rich, 
speaks,  in  the  opinion  of  the  crowd,  sheer 
nonsense,  though  he  simply  expresses  the 
generally  received  truth,  that  what  we  are  is 
of  more  importance  than  what  we  possess. 

As  distance  seems  to  bring  the  stars  close 
together,  so  in  remote  epochs  great  men  and 
great  deeds  appear  to  stand  thicker.  This  is 
but  a  form  of  the  illusion  which  perspective 
always  creates,  and  to  which  we  must  also 
attribute  the  prevalent  notion  that  in  ancient 
times  heroic  virtue  was  less  rare  than  in  our 
own.  "In  cheerfulness,"  says  Pliny,  "lies  the 
success  of  our  studies."  We  live  only  as  we 
energize.  Energy  is  the  mean  by  which  our 
faculties  are  developed,  and  a  higher  self- 
activity  is  the  end  at  which  all  education 
should  aim.  Whatever  else  may  succeed  with 


86  THINGS   OF   THE  MIND. 

us,  we  all  fail  in  love;  and  in  this  lies  the 
essential  sadness  of  life.  He  who  cannot 
perform  noble  deeds  will  not  be  able  to  write 
in  a  noble  style.  He  who  takes  interest  in  a 
pugilist  rather  than  in  a  philosopher  or  a  poet 
is  as  though  he  were  a  dog  or  a  cock.  The 
lack  of  money  may  cause  discomfort,  but  the 
lack  of  intelligence  makes  us  poor,  the  lack  of 
virtue  makes  us  vulgar.  Lack  of  money  may 
be  supplied,  lack  of  soul  never.  The  money 
we  owe  enslaves  us,  the  money  we  own  cor- 
rupts us.  Whoever  can  influence  men  should 
strive  to  make  them  more  courageous,  more 
enduring,  more  hopeful,  simpler,  more  joyful. 

"Books,"  says  Emerson,  "are  the  best  of 
things,  well  used;  abused,  among  the  worst. 
What  is  the  right  use?  What  is  the  one  end 
which  all  means  go  to  effect?  They  are  for 
nothing  but  to  inspire." 

There  is  no  phrase  more  suggestive  than  this 
of  the  Gospel, — to  "throw  pearls  to  swine." 
This  is  what  the  makers  of  literature  have 
been  doing  from  the  beginning;  and  that 
which  still  survives  as  literature  is  what  a  few 
heavenly  minds  have  picked  up  from  beneath 
the  hoofs  of  the  herd,  whose  uplifted  snouts 
pleaded  for  swill,  not  for  thought.  Descartes 
and  Spinoza,  like  Plato  and  Aristotle,  hold 
that  blessedness  consists  in  knowing  in  so 


VIEWS   OF  EDUCATION.  87 

living  a  way  that  to  know  is  to  admire,  to 
love,  to  be  filled  with  peace  and  joy.  A  man 
of  genius  is  like  a  barbarous  conqueror;  he 
slays  the  victims  he  despoils,  and  so  what 
he  steals  seems  never  to  have  belonged  to 
others. 

"The  philosopher,"  says  St.  Evremonde, 
"devotes  himself,  not  to  the  most  learned  writ- 
ings to  acquire  knowledge,  but  to  the  most 
sensible  to  strengthen  his  understanding.  At 
one  time  he  seeks  the  most  elegant  to  refine 
his  taste,  at  another  the  most  amusing  to 
refresh  his  spirits."  Whoever  reads  to  good 
purpose  seeks  to  place  himself  at  the  writer's 
point  of  view.  He  reads  for  inspiration  and 
knowledge,  not  to  find  fault.  There  are  many 
whose  view  of  education  is  that  it  is  a  process 
of  taming,  like  the  domestication  of  animals. 
They  strive  to  subdue  the  child  and  make  him 
pliable  to  another's  will;  and  when  he  has 
become  thoroughly  tame,  they  think  he  is  well 
educated.  A  tame  horse,  however,  if  we 
consider  its  own  good,  is  inferior  to  one  that 
is  wild;  and  whoever  or  whatever  is  overcome 
and  made  subject  is  weakened  and  dispirited. 
Whatever  we  teach  boys,  girls  should  be 
taught  the  science  and  art  of  education  itself; 
for  three-fourths  of  them  will  become  mothers, 
and  education  is  a  mother's  chief  business,  in 


88  THINGS  OF  THE  MIND. 

which  if  she  fails,  schools  and  other  agencies 
are  powerless  to  form  true  men  and  women. 

What  gives  pleasure  is  of  little  moment, 
what  gives  power  and  wisdom  is  all-important. 
The  degenerate  seek  ease  and  comfort;  the 
strong  love  adventure  and  danger,  hardship 
and  labor.  To  lead  a  moral  and  intellectual 
life  is  to  make  one's  self,  physically  even, 
attractive. 

When  the  discerning  perceive  that  an  author 
addresses  himself  to  a  circle,  a  party,  or  a 
class,  they  care  not  what  he  says;  knowing 
that  if  it  were  worth  writing,  he  would  utter 
it  simply  from  his  inner  being,  and  without 
thought  of  impressing  others.  A  book  thrown 
in  our  way  by  chance,  an  acquaintance  made 
by  accident,  changes  the  whole  course  of  life. 
We  are  strong  when  we  follow  our  own  talent, 
weak  when  another's  leads  us.  Whoever  is 
made  free  frees  himself.  This  is  the  mean- 
ing of  the  Gospel  phrase :  "  Ye  shall  know  the 
truth,  and  the  truth  shall  make  you  free." 
Another  may  break  down  prison  walls  and 
strike  off  fetters,  but  this  liberating  truth  each 
one  must  teach  himself,  or  never  know  it  at 
all.  Duration  rather  than  intensity  of  high 
and  passionate  feeling  makes  the  man  of 
genius.  The  human  race  is  so  poor  in  men  of 
real  intellectual  force  that  when  it  finds  one 


VIEWS   OF  EDUCATION.  89 

it  receives  him  gladly,  whatever  his  defects 
or  perverseness  may  be.  Whoever  impels  to 
high  thinking  gives  pleasure,  and  of  a  nobler 
kind  than  that  which  a  fair  scene  or  rich  wine 
or  delightful  company  can  give.  Why  should 
the  American  who  is  most  alive  be  able  simply 
to  make  the  most  money  ?  Why  should  he  not 
think  the  highest  thought,  feel  the  deepest 
love?  Sensation  lies  at  the  root  of  thought. 
We  really  know  only  what  experience,  suffer- 
ing, and  labor  have  wrought  into  our  very 
being.  Hence  the  young  have  no  true  or  deep 
knowledge. 

In  educating,  as  in  walking,  we  have  an  end 
in  view.  In  educating  this  end  is  an  idea,  — 
the  idea  of  human  perfection;  and  to  develop 
and  make  plain  this  ideal  is  more  important  than 
any  of  the  thousand  questions  with  which  our 
pedagogical  theorists  are  occupied ;  for  to  say 
we  live  by  faith,  hope,  love,  and  imagination  is 
but  a  way  of  saying  that  we  live  only  in  the 
light  of  ideals.  A  student  wrote  this  over  his 
door:  "Who  enters  here  does  me  honor,  who 
stays  away  gives  me  pleasure."  "To  read  to 
good  purpose,"  says  Matthew  Arnold,  "we 
must  read  a  great  deal,  and  be  content  not  to 
use  a  great  deal  of  what  we  read. " 

A  cultivated  mind  entertains  all  ideas  and 
all  facts  with  attention,  just  as  a  polite  and 


90  THINGS   OF   THE   MIND. 

brave  man  is  gracious  to  all  comers.  The 
painter  studies  the  body  in  nude  models.  Let 
the  thinker,  if  he  would  know  the  value  of  his 
thought,  strip  it  of  verbal  ornament.  The 
showy  dress  of  words  but  hides  the  lack  of 
truth,  as  a  fine  phrase  makes  its  content  credi- 
ble. "  Not  more  than  one  in  one  hundred 
thousand  of  the  books  written  in  any  lan- 
guage," says  Schopenhauer,  "forms  a  real  and 
permanent  part  of  literature." 

In  literature  is  preserved  the  essence  of  the 
intellectual,  moral,  and  imaginative  life  of  the 
best  minds.  A  good  book  may  easily  be  more 
interesting  than  its  author;  for  there  we  find 
pure  and  refined  what  in  him  was  commingled 
with  baser  matter.  I  cannot  read  all  books, 
but  I  can  read  many;  and  the  writers  of  the 
many  I  read  have  read  all  that  is  worth  read- 
ing. The  journalist  is  an  alarmist.  His 
newspaper  sells  in  proportion  to  the  excite- 
ment he  succeeds  in  creating.  Wars,  disasters, 
panics,  famines,  plagues,  outrages,  scandals, 
form  the  element  in  which  he  thrives.  His 
readers  lose  the  power  to  remember,  to  think. 
They  lose  the  sense  for  simple  truth  and 
beauty,  for  proportion  and  harmony.  Like 
the  readers  of  cheap  novels,  they  become 
callous,  and  can  be  roused  to  momentary 
attention  only  by  what  is  startling  or  mon- 


VIEWS  OF  EDUCATION.  91 

strous.  The  journalist  seeks  what  will  make 
immediate  impression;  a  real  mind  looks  to 
truth  and  to  permanent  results. 

No  one  actually  holds  within  his  memory  one 
ten-thousandth  part  of  the  information  con- 
tained in  a  book  such  as  the  British  Ency- 
clopaedia; and  he  who  knows  most  of  the 
Encyclopaedia  is  probably  a  man  in  whom 
there  is  little  spontaneity,  little  of  that  mental 
quality  which  gives  one's  thought  personal, 
that  is  real,  charm  and  worth.  "Truth  that 
has  been  merely  learned,"  says  Schopenhauer, 
"  is  like  an  artificial  limb,  a  false  tooth,  a 
waxen  nose;  it  adheres  to  us  only  because  it 
has  been  put  on." 

The  right  to  punish  implies  the  duty  to  teach 
and  educate.  Once  we  have  gained  insight 
into  life's  meaning,  we  see  how  nearly  all 
men,  like  hounds  astray,  are  following  scents 
which  lead  nowhere.  He  who  writes  with 
care  day  by  day  will  learn  at  least  how  to  say 
things.  For  the  education  of  men,  which  is 
the  highest  human  work,  one  heroic,  loving 
and  illumined  soul  is  worth  more  than  all  the 
money-endowments.  How  poor  are  they  who 
have  only  money  to  give!  May  it  not  be  a 
consciousness  of  the  small  value  of  what  they 
can  bestow  that  hardens  the  hearts  of  the 
rich?  They  who  give  money  give  like  those 


92  THINGS  OF  THE  MIND. 

who  give  food ;  they  who  give  truth  and  love 
give  like  God. 

As  the  miser  lives  ever,  in  thought,  with 
his  gold,  the  lover  with  his  beloved,  so  the 
student  lives  always  with  the  things  of  the 
mind,  with  what  is  true  and  fair  and  good. 
High  purpose  and  the  will  to  labor  mark  those 
who  are  predestined  to  distinction.  To  have 
knowledge  but  no  skill,  no  ability  to  do  any 
useful  thing,  avails  nothing.  Herein  lies  the 
defect  of  our  education :  we  are  taught  every- 
thing except  how  to  work  wisely,  bravely,  and 
perseveringly;  how  to  strive  not  for  money 
and  place,  but  for  wisdom  and  virtue.  Learn- 
ing without  faculty  leaves  us  impotent,  and 
may  easily  render  us  ridiculous.  In  each  soul 
there  is  a  world  in  embryo,  and  the  teacher's 
business  is  to  help  it  to  be  born.  To  interest 
the  young  in  themselves,  in  the  world  that  is 
in  and  around  them,  that  they  may  realize  that 
its  implications  are  divine,  is  a  chief  part 
of  education.  The  best  help  is  that  which 
makes  us  reverent,  self-active  and  indepen- 
dent. Work  reveals  character.  We  know 
what  a  man  is  when  we  know,  not  what  his 
opinions  and  beliefs  are,  but  what  he  does  or 
has  done.  Our  highest  aspirations  reveal  our 
deepest  needs.  Better  be  one  whom  men  hate 
than  one  whose  ideal  is  good  digestion,  good 
clothes,  and  general  comfortableness. 


VIEWS  OF  EDUCATION,  93 

The  true  educator  strives  to  draw  forth  and 
strengthen  the  sense  for  truth  and  justice,  and 
to  develop  a  taste  for  the  purer  and  nobler 
pleasures  of  life.  His  aim  is  to  make  men 
good  and  reasonable,  not  to  make  them  smart 
and  eager  for  possession  or  indulgence.  The 
discipline  of  sorrow,  of  sorrow  of  a  great  and 
worthy  kind,  has  a  high  educational  value. 
More  than  anything  else  it  purifies  the  sources 
of  life  and  forms  character.  Every  choice 
spirit  seeks  some  fortress,  some  soul-sanctuary, 
where  he  may  live  for  truth  and  God,  far  from 
the  crowd  who  neither  know  nor  love.  You 
are  not  I,  your  good  is  not  mine.  Go  forward, 
then,  and  prosper;  your  gain  can  never  be  my 
loss.  We  thoroughly  understand  only  what 
we  have  outgrown.  Intellectual  progress  is  an 
approach  to  truer  estimates  of  values.  A  man 
is  what  he  is  and  who  he  is,  not  by  virtue 
of  wealth  or  office,  but  by  the  quality  of  his 
thought  and  life.  "Thinking  and  doing, 
doing  and  thinking,"  says  Goethe,  "is  the 
sum  of  all  wisdom,  —  so  recognized  and  prac- 
tised from  the  beginning,  but  not  understood 
by  every  one." 


CHAPTER  IV. 

PROFESSIONAL  EDUCATION. 

Godlike  is  the  physician  who  is  a  philosopher. — HIPPOCRATES. 
The  philosopher   should  end  with  medicine,  the  physician 
begin  with  philosophy.  —  ARISTOTLE. 

AS  the  whole  science  of  arithmetic  is  con- 
tained in  the  multiplication  table,  so  the 
whole  significance  of  life  is  summed  up  for  each 
one  in  his  table  of  values.  What  has  worth  and 
what  is  the  relative  worth  of  desirable  things? 
This  is  the  primal  question  for  whoever  has  the 
will  to  exert  himself;  for  as  he  feels  and  thinks 
on  this  subject,  so  will  he  act  To  mistake  here 
involves  the  drifting  of  his  whole  existence  away 
from  what  is  best,  from  what  is  true,  good,  and 
fair.  At  first  thought  it  would  seem  that  there 
are  certain  fundamental  notions  as  to  what  is 
desirable,  upon  which  all  agree.  Who  can  doubt, 
we  may  ask,  that  it  is  better  to  be  than  not  to  be, 
that  what  has  life  is  being  in  a  higher  sense  than 
what  is  inanimate,  and  that  the  degree  of  worth 
in  living  things  is  measured  by  the  power  and 
quality  of  life?  But  there  are  men  who  take  no 


PltOFESSIONAL  EDUCATION.  95 

mean  rank  as  thinkers,  who  call  life  evil  and 
death  good,  who  hold  that  it  is  better  not  to  be 
than  to  be,  as  there  are  others  who  prefer  igno- 
rance to  knowledge,  pleasure  to  duty,  strength 
of  body  to  intellectual  power,  and  material  pos- 
sessions to  spiritual  insight.  To  some,  it  seems 
good  to  have  many  slaves,  many  wives,  many 
children,  while  others  believe  that  slavery  de- 
grades the  owner  not  less  than  the  owned,  that 
one  wife  is  more  than  enough,  and  that  desire 
for  children,  the  result  of  instinct  and  not  of 
rational  motives,  is  felt  most  by  those  who  think 
least.  As  men  become  more  intelligent  and 
civilized,  they  argue,  they  grow  less  able  and 
less  willing  to  have  offspring,  and  he  who  knows 
what  life  is,  if  reason  controls  him,  should  be  as 
unwilling  to  transmit  it  as  to  take  it. 

To  most  men,  wealth  and  power,  position  and 
fame  appear  to  be  supremely  desirable,  and  yet 
there  are  many  who  are  persuaded  that  to  the 
nobler  sort  of  life,  riches  and  honor  and  place 
and  renown  are  hindrances.  Of  the  worth  of 
friendship,  as  of  that  of  the  Jove  of  women,  oppo- 
site views  are  taken.  Civilization  is  decried  as 
a  state  of  degeneracy;  art,  as  at  once  the  result 
and  the  cause  of  an  effeminate  temper ;  and 
religion,  as  the  chief  source  of  the  worst  evils 
which  have  afflicted  mankind.  Thus  widely  do 
we  differ  as  to  the  value  of  things.  The  chief 


96  THINGS   OF  THE  MIND. 

barrier  between  men  is  not  wealth,  or  rank,  or 
creed;  it  is  opposition  of  life  and  thought;  for 
these  determine  the  worth  of  all  things.  The 
mind  is  the  creator  of  interest  and  consequently 
of  value. 

See  yonder  youth  and  maid  how  wrapped  they  are 

each  in  the  other  ; 
See  yonder  two  white  lambs  that  gently  push 

their  heads  together. 

I  look  and  feel  a  momentary  pleasure,  but  if 
there  is  interest,  I  create  it  by  putting  thought 
in  what,  in  the  lovers  and  the  lambs,  is  but  sen- 
sation. Life  is  interpreted  by  thought,  but  it  is 
enrooted  in  faith,  which,  with  the  aid  of  knowl- 
edge, supplies  the  element  of  value  in  every 
sphere  of  human  action,  since  that  alone  seems 
good  to  us  in  which  we  genuinely  believe,  whether 
it  be  money  or  wisdom,  pleasure  or  power,  the 
world  or  God.  What  is  anything  worth  to  him 
who  believes  in  nothing,  who  is  indifferent  to  all 
things?  What  is  aught  but  as  it  is  esteemed? 
Faith  is  wedded  to  desire,  and  desire  gives  value. 
What  we  yearn  for  seems  to  be  more  truly 
part  of  ourselves  than  what  we  possess.  Hence 
youth  with  its  longings  is  richer  than  age  with 
its  millions.  Hence  religion  which  makes  us 
conscious  of  our  infinite  needs,  and  utters  itself 
in  ceaseless  prayer  and  sacrifice,  is  man's  chief 
consoler  and  joy-bringer.  Hence  genius  which 


PROFESSIONAL   EDUCATION.  97 

feels  itself  akin  to  all  things,  and  is  impelled  to 
identify  itself  with  all  things,  is  beatified  by  its 
own  spirit.  Hence  faith,  hope,  and  love,  the 
triune  fountainhead  of  boundless  desire  and 
aspiration,  are  the  springs  of  life  upwelling  from 
central  depths  of  being.  The  divine  joy  and 
goodness  which  the  young  find  in  life  are  there 
in  truth,  and  they  in  whom  reflection  or  experi- 
ence has  destroyed  this  vital  faith,  have  lost  the 
view  of  things  as  they  are.  Fortunate  is  the 
orator  who  finds  an  audience  whom  the  all-hoping 
soul  of  youth  persuades,  with  an  eloquence  whose 
secret  words  cannot  convey,  to  trust  in  whatever 
is  high,  or  holy,  or  excellent;  and  still  more  for- 
tunate is  he  when  those  who  listen  are  drawn 
by  an  inner  attraction  to  devote  their  lives  to  a 
profession  in  which  to  be  ignorant  is  to  be 
criminal. 

Belief  in  the  good  of  knowledge  is  not  the 
weakest  of  the  bonds  which  unite  the  members 
of  the  learned  professions ;  for  whether  our 
special  study  be  theology,  or  law,  or  medicine, 
or  pedagogy,  that  which  determines  our  place 
and  power  to  render  service  is  knowledge,  and 
the  skill  that  comes  of  knowledge.  It  is  expected 
and  required  of  us  that  we  be  the  wise  men 
among  the  people,  able  to  counsel,  to  guide,  and 
to  defend  them  wherever  their  vital  interests  are 
at  stake.  Our  callings  have  their  origin  in  human 

7 


98  THINGS  OF  THE  MIND. 

miseries.  Disease,  folly,  sin,  and  ignorance  make 
physicians,  lawyers,  priests,  and  educators  pos- 
sible and  necessary;  and  the  infirmities  upon 
which  they  thrive  are  so  related  that  he  who 
ministers  to  one  ministers  to  all.  Another  bond 
is  thus  woven  into  the  very  constitution  of  the 
liberal  professions.  Disease,  in  innumerable  in- 
stances, is  the  child  of  folly,  sin,  and  ignorance; 
folly,  the  child  of  sin,  ignorance,  and  disease ; 
sin,  the  child  of  ignorance,  disease,  and  folly; 
while  ignorance  may  be  said  to  be  the  common 
mother  of  all  our  miseries.  Were  there  no  dis- 
ease, there  would  be  no  physicians ;  were  there 
no  folly,  there  would  be  no  lawyers ;  were  there 
no  sin,  there  would  be  no  priests;  were  there  no 
ignorance,  there  would  be  no  teachers.  It  is,  then, 
our  unenviable  lot  to  live,  like  moral  cannibals, 
on  the  misfortunes  and  weaknesses  of  our  fellow- 
men  ;  and  it  is  but  natural  that  we  should  be 
made  immortal  themes  of  exhaustless  satire  and 
abuse.  What  a  general  blessing  have  profes- 
sional men  not  been  to  the  whole  literary  tribe ! 
The  priest's  love  of  ease  and  power,  the  law- 
yer's cunning  and  dilatoriness,  the  physician's 
wise  look,  and  his  blunders  hidden  by  the  grave, 
are  subjects  which  must  find  a  ready  response  in 
the  general  heart,  since  books  are  full  of  them. 
Queen  Mab  tickles  the  parson's  nose,  as  he  lies 
asleep,  with  a  tithe-pig's  tail,  and  he  dreams  of 


PROFESSIONAL  EDUCATION.  99 

another  benefice ;  she  drives  over  the  lawyer's 
fingers,  and  he  dreams  of  fees.  His  clients  are 
like  flies  in  the  spider's  web. 

"  When  once  they  are  imbrangled 
The  more  they  stir,  the  more  they  're  tangled/' 

Doctors  themselves,  I  imagine,  more  than 
half  agree  with  Macbeth,  when  he  bids  them 
throw  physic  to  the  dogs,  for  he  '11  none  of  it. 

"  Physicians  mend  or  end  us 
Secundum  artem  ;    but  although  we  sneer 
In  health,  when  sick  we  call  them  to  attend  us, 
Without  the  least  propensity  to  jeer." 

If  not  witty  ourselves,  like  Falstaff,  why  should 
we  object  to  being  the  cause  of  wit  in  others? 
We  are  sure  to  have  our  revenge,  for  men  will 
still  be  fools,  and  sinners,  and  invalids,  and  how- 
ever much  they  mock,  they  will  call  us  in  the 
hour  of  need.  It  is  vain  to  warn  them  against 
priests,  lawyers,  and  doctors, —  they  will  never 
be  wise  and  never  be  well. 

In  sober  truth,  we  are  the  best  friends  of  man, 
for  we  are  all  ministers  of  health,  without  which 
life  is  hardly  a  blessing.  Whatever  may  con- 
tribute to  the  bodily  well-being  and  perfection 
of  man  is  the  physician's  concern ;  whatever  may 
secure  individual  rights  and  promote  social  jus- 
tice is  the  lawyer's;  the  priest's  is  the  soul's 
health,  morality,  and  righteousness.  They  all 
strive  for  stronger,  purer,  nobler  life,  in  the 


100  THINGS   OF  THE  MIND. 

body,  in  the  conscience,  in  the  soul,  in  the  indi- 
vidual, in  the  State,  in  the  Church.  Their  mis- 
sion is  high  and  holy,  it  is  Godlike,  and  to  fulfil 
it  rightly,  the  best  gifts  thoroughly  cultivated 
are  not  too  great,  That  which  they,  day  by  day 
with  ceaseless  efforts,  labor  to  accomplish  is  the 
prophet's  vision,  the  philosopher's  truth,  and  the 
poet's  dream ;  and  what  else  do  patriots,  states- 
men and  men  of  science  long  for  than  the  kind 
of  life  which  it  is  the  business  of  the  learned 
professions  to  foster?  To  these  high  callings 
no  servile  spirit  should  belong.  By  the  common 
consent  of  the  civilized  world  they  are  denomi- 
nated liberal,  for  only  the  free  and  enlightened 
mind  can  grasp  their  significance  or  enter  with 
right  disposition  upon  the  work  they  involve. 
Not  pleasure  or  wealth  or  the  love  of  ease  or 
any  lower  motive  may  open  the  door  of  the 
temple  of  knowledge  and  religion  ;  but  they  who 
seek  admission  should  feel  that  they  devote  their 
lives  to  sacred  tasks,  in  which  the  more  they 
succeed  the  more  shall  they  have  to  labor  and 
endure.  They  should  have  youth's  deep  faith  in 
the  good  of  life,  and  be  willing  to  deny  them- 
selves, and  to  persevere  through  years  in  the 
work  of  self-culture  that  they  may  make  them- 
selves worthy  to  become  the  bearers  of  the  best 
gifts  to  their  fellow-men.  The  prolonged  infancy 
and  childhood  of  the  human  offspring  is  nature's 


PROFESSIONAL   EDUCATION.  IOI 

compulsion  to  education,  and  the  noblest  minds 
are  conscious  of  an  inward  impulse  driving  them 
to  become  day  after  day,  self-surpassed.  The 
doctrine  that  the  individual  dwindles,  while  the 
race  is  more  and  more,  they  do  not  accept,  for 
they  know  the  race  exists  only  in  individuals, 
the  highest  of  whom  give  it  wisdom  and  distinc- 
tion, glory  and  strength.  From  their  early  years 
they  hear  the  appeal  of  the  unseen  powers  whis- 
pering to  them:  Be  men,  not  merchants,  or 
lawyers,  or  doctors,  or  priests,  but  Godlike 
beings ;  not  means,  but  ends,  for  the  universe 
exists  that  perfect  men  and  women  may  be 
formed.  An  inner  voice  teaches  them  that  man 
lives  to  grow,  to  upbuild  his  being,  and  that  effort 
is  the  source  of  all  improvement,  being  nothing 
less  than  the  hold  the  finite  has  upon  the  infinite. 
Before  they  begin  the  special  studies  which  are 
to  fit  them  more  immediately  for  the  calling  they 
have  chosen,  they  will  have  gotten  a  liberal 
education ;  for  the  mind  is  the  instrument  with 
which  they  shall  work,  and  since  the  interests  to 
be  committed  to  them  are  of  paramount,  nay,  su- 
preme moment,  this  instrument  can  never  be  too 
perfect.  Is  it  conceivable  that  awkward,  undisci- 
plined intellects  should  rightly  apprehend  the 
deep  and  complex  sciences  which  are  the  sub- 
ject matter  of  the  learned  professions? 

A  liberal  education  is  not  so  much  knowledge 


102  THINGS   OF   THE  MIND. 

as  it  is  a  preparation  for  knowledge.  It  is  open- 
ness and  flexibility  of  mind,  delight  in  the  things 
of  the  intellect,  justness  of  view,  candor,  patience, 
and  reasonableness.  It  has  a  moral  as  well  as 
an  intellectual  value.  It  is  discipline  of  mind 
and  of  character.  It  opens  higher  worlds  than 
those  the  senses  reveal.  It  offers  nobler  aims 
than  the  pursuit  of  material  things ;  it  liberates 
from  sordid  views  and  the  mercenary  mind,  and 
thus  establishes  the  primary  condition  of  genu- 
ine success ;  for  each  one's  worth  as  well  as  the 
worth  of  what  he  does  should  be  estimated  by 
the  spirit  in  which  he  lives  and  strives.  If  he 
take  no  delight  in  his  work,  but  labor  solely 
with  a  view  to  profit,  it  is  a  mere  chance  if  he 
do  not  become  a  criminal.  A  liberal  education 
does  for  the  mind  what  wholesome  food  and 
healthful  exercise  do  for  the  body,  —  it  gives 
vigor,  energy,  endurance,  ease,  and  grace.  As 
the  athlete  performs  feats  which  the  untrained 
can  only  admire,  so  cultivated  intellects  accom- 
plish what  ruder  minds  cannot  understand  or 
appreciate.  There  is  a  quickness  of  perception, 
a  clearness  of  view,  a  soundness  of  judgment,  a 
power  of  discrimination  and  analysis,  a  sureness 
of  tact,  and  a  refinement  of  taste,  which  educa- 
tion alone  can  give.  It  bestows  also  a  sense  of 
freedom,  that  inspires  courage  and  confidence, 
which  are  elements  of  strength,  whatever  the 


PROFESSIONAL   EDUCATION.  103 

undertaking  be;  while  the  faculty  to  think,  to 
reason  and  compare,  the  ability  to  see  things  as 
they  are,  which  it  confers,  gives  those  who  have 
received  a  liberal  education  manifest  advantages 
over  others  in  the  prosecution  of  scientific  and 
professional  studies.  Their  knowledge  is  more 
accurate,  it  is  more  intimately  related  to  life, 
their  mental  grasp  is  firmer,  their  view  wider 
and  more  profound.  They  escape  the  narrow- 
ing influence  of  purely  professional  studies, 
which,  if  unhindered,  would  make  us  mere  theo- 
logians or  lawyers  or  physicians,  whereas  it  is 
our  business  to  unfold  our  being  on  every  side 
and  to  make  ourselves  alive  in  many  directions. 
Division  of  labor  makes  everything  cheap, — 
man  first  of  all ;  and  the  increasing  tendency 
to  specialization  may  have  the  effect,  not  only 
to  lower  the  standard  of  professional  life,  but  to 
interfere  with  the  development  in  the  professions 
of  strong,  many-sided  personalities,  interesting 
in  themselves,  and  lending  dignity  to  their  call- 
ings ;  who,  while  they  are  masters  in  their  sev- 
eral departments,  are  none  the  less  at  home  in 
the  whole  world  of  human  interests  and  specu- 
lations. The  man  of  liberal  education  is  a  life- 
long student,  and  the  habitual  student  is  rarely 
content  to  think  and  read  but  in  a  single  direc- 
tion; for  he  soon  perceives  that  all  kinds  of 
knowledge  are  related,  and  that  he  who  would 


104  THINGS   OF  THE  MIND. 

acquire  the  full  and  free  use  of  his  intellectual 
faculties  must  exercise  himself  in  all  the  fields 
of  thought.  While  he  acquaints  himself  with 
the  best  that  has  been  thought  and  written,  he 
will  keep  pace  with  the  progress  of  research  and 
speculation  in  his  own  profession,  for,  in  the 
midst  of  a  thousand  cares  and  duties,  he  will 
still  find  time  to  read  and  meditate.  He  will  be 
a  thoroughly  informed  theologian,  lawyer,  or 
physician,  but  he  will  also  be  an  accomplished 
man,  whose  speech  and  behavior  will  help  to 
refine  and  exalt  the  society  in  which  he  moves. 
He  will  hold  his  opinions  with  firmness  and  he 
will  express  them  with  ease  and  grace.  His 
principles  will  be  pure,  his  sympathies  large  and 
his  religion  unfeigned.  A  good  friend  and  a 
pleasant  companion,  he  will  be  most  happy 
when  he  is  permitted  to  hold  communion  with 
the  great  minds  of  all  ages,  or  to  retire  into  the 
world  of  his  own  contemplations.  To  him  no 
company  is  so  pleasant  as  that  of  true  and 
beautiful  thoughts ;  for  they  are  forever  fresh 
and  invigorating,  and  like  well-bred  people,  if 
we  begin  to  tire,  they  take  their  leave,  till  the 
right  moment  return.  His  professional  experi- 
ence will  reveal  to  him  much  of  the  weakness 
and  miseries  of  men,  but  his  sympathy  and  love 
will  thereby  be  purified  and  strengthened. 

While   I  thus  treat  of  professional    life    and 


PROFESSIONAL   EDUCATION.  105 

education  from  a  general  point  of  view,  and 
somewhat  in  the  spirit  of  an  idealist,  I  do  not 
lose  sight  of  the  occasion  which  calls  forth  this 
discourse.  As  a  minister  of  religion  I  should 
and  do  take  a  genuine  interest  in  whatever  con- 
cerns the  science  and  art  of  healing.  The  first 
priest  was  the  first  physician,  as  well  as  the  first 
lawgiver  and  ruler,  for  government,  literature, 
science,  and  art  all  had  their  cradle  in  the  tem- 
ple of  religion,  and  were  nourished  by  faith  in 
the  unseen  powers.  Asclepios,  the  gentle  arti- 
ficer of  freedom  from  pain,  was  a  son  of  the 
gods,  and  from  him  Hippocrates,  the  father  of 
medicine,  claimed  descent.  To  the  religious 
spirit  in  which  he  followed  his  profession,  the 
oath  he  prescribed  to  all  physicians  that  they 
would  pass  their  lives  and  practice  their  art  in 
purity  and  holiness,  bears  witness.  To  come  to 
what  concerns  us  more  nearly,  the  Founder  of 
the  Christian  faith  came  not  merely  as  a  teacher 
of  divine  truth  and  a  savior  of  the  soul,  but  he 
came  also  as  a  healer  of  bodily  infirmity,  and  in 
much  of  what  is  recorded  of  him  the  restoration 
of  health  is  a  striking  feature.  At  the  sight  of 
suffering  his  sympathies  awaken,  and  care  for 
the  sick  is  one  of  the  virtues  he  especially 
emphasizes.  The  first  definite  duty  he  imposed 
upon  his  disciples  was  that  of  travelling  about 
to  announce  the  Kingdom  of  God  and  to  heal 


IO6  THINGS  OF   THE  MIND. 

those  afflicted  with  disease.  Of  the  four  who 
have  left  record  of  his  life  one  was  a  physician. 
There  may  be  higher  things  than  the  alleviation 
of  pain,  but  there  is  no  more  genuine  test  of 
love  for  men,  which  is  a  fundamental  principle 
in  the  life  and  teachings  of  Christ.  The  spirit 
of  humanity  which  he  more  than  all  others  has 
awakened  and  strengthened,  is  nowhere  better 
exemplified  than  in  the  medical  profession  as  it 
exists  in  the  world  to-day.  The  true  physician 
waits  as  a  servant  upon  the  miseries  of  man; 
like  a  soldier  at  his  post,  he  stands  ready  to 
bring  relief.  Neither  darkness  of  night,  nor 
storm,  nor  contagion,  nor  pestilence,  nor  the  field 
of  carnage  can  deter  him  when  duty  calls.  His 
service  is  at  the  command  of  rich  and  poor,  and 
his  mind  is  ever  busy  with  thoughts  that  bear 
on  the  prevention  or  cure  of  disease,  for  with 
him  preventive  medicine  takes  precedence  of 
the  curative.  In  this  he  obeys  the  law  of  Chris- 
tian charity,  for,  if  to  minister  to  the  sick  is 
Christlike,  to  forestall  disease  by  searching  into 
its  causes  and  discovering  how  they  may  be 
removed  is  not  less  a  godlike  thing.  They  who 
throw  themselves  as  consolers  and  servants  into 
the  midst  of  pest-stricken  populations  are  God's 
men  and  women ;  so  also  are  they  who  teach 
us  how  pestilence  and  contagion  may  be  ex- 
cluded. Worthy  of  praise  and  imitation  are  the 


PROFESSIONAL   EDUCATION.  IO/ 

builders  and  endowers  of  hospitals  for  the  poor, 
but  more  worthy  yet  are  the  educators  who  show 
the  people  how  disease  may  be  avoided,  and  the 
philanthropists  and  statesmen  who  place  them 
in  health-giving  surroundings.  From  what  un- 
imaginable sufferings  has  not  the  knowledge  of 
the  prophylactic  and  therapeutic  properties  of 
quinine  saved  mankind?  To  what  countless 
millions  has  not  Jenner  come  with  his  vaccine, 
bringing,  like  a  God,  immunity  from  one  of  the 
most  terrible  diseases?  Who  can  estimate  the 
mitigation  of  pain  and  the  saving  of  life  brought 
about  by  the  use  of  anaesthetics? 

Aseptic  and  antiseptic  treatment  has  opened 
a  new  era  in  surgery,  enabling  the  operator  to 
use  the  knife  with  full  confidence  of  success  in 
cases  which  for  centuries  had  been  thought 
desperate.  Pasteur,  as  competent  judges  be- 
lieve, has  found  a  preventive  of  hydrophobia, 
and  why  shall  we  not  look  forward  to  the  day 
when  the  bacilli  which  cause  tuberculosis,  chol- 
era and  other  parasitic  diseases  shall  be  under 
the  control  of  the  physician? 

It  has  been  shown  plainly  enough  to  convince 
the  most  sceptical  that  organisms  wholly  invisi- 
ble without  the  aid  of  the  highest  magnifying 
powers,  cause  each  its  particular  infectious  dis- 
ease. Men  of  science  have  succeeded  in  culti- 
vating these  bacilli  like  plants  in  a  garden. 


T08  THINGS   OF   THE  MIND. 

They  keep  them  in  glass  tubes  on  the  shelves 
of  their  laboratories  and  handle  them  with 
impunity,  and  we  can  not  believe  that  our  con- 
trol over  the  infinitely  small  will  stop  here. 
When  once  the  cause  of  disease  is  clearly  known, 
the  human  mind  which  weighs  the  stars  and 
counts  the  pulsations  of  light,  will  find  a  remedy. 
The  men  who  are  striving  to  do  this  work,  often 
in  silence  and  obscurity,  remote  from  the  praise 
and  approval  of  the  world,  are  carrying  on  a 
warfare  in  comparison  with  which  the  noisy 
battles  of  history  are  as  insignificant  as  the 
shouts  and  stone-throwings  of  a  rabble.  They 
stand  face  to  face  with  disease  and  death  in 
their  most  secret  lurking-places,  from  which, 
from  the  beginning  of  the  world,  they  have 
made  assault  on  life.  Of  old  it  was  affirmed 
that  man's  life  is  a  warfare,  and  the  saying  has 
come  down  to  us  who  find  a  deeper  and  more 
important  truth  in  it  than  the  ancients  ever 
suspected.  Apart  from  the  world-wide  struggle 
for  existence,  in  the  large  and  historic  sense, 
each  living  organism  is  a  battlefield.  Consider 
for  a  moment  the  wonderful  part  which  the 
white  corpuscles  of  the  blood  play  in  defence  of 
life.  Their  work  may  be  studied  with  the  aid 
of  a  microscope  in  the  web  of  a  frog's  foot,  in 
which  irritation  has  been  caused,  as  the  bacillus 
of  disease  causes  irritation.  When  the  inflamma- 


PROFESSIONAL   EDUCATION.  IOQ 

tion  begins,  the  white  corpuscles  lag  behind  and 
hug  the  sides  of  the  veins  and  arteries ;  a  little 
later  we  may  observe  them  passing  through  the 
walls  of  the  blood-vessels  into  the  surrounding 
tissues,  and  again  returning  into  their  natural 
channels,  from  which  they  had  issued  to  attack 
the  organism  that  had  set  up  the  irritation,  and 
to  destroy  it  or  themselves  to  be  destroyed. 
These  white  corpuscles,  then,  which  are  found 
in  the  blood  in  the  ratio  of  one  to  five  hundred 
of  the  red  particles,  move  with  the  life-bearing 
fluid,  like  soldiers  who  guard  a  convoy  and  are 
always  ready  to  repel  the  enemy.  Hence  they 
are  called  phagocytes,  devourers  of  disease- 
producing  germs.  These  protoplasmic  soldiers 
are  the  wisest  medical  teachers,  and  the  whole 
profession  is  beginning  to  learn  the  lesson  they 
inculcate,  that  the  best  treatment  is  warfare  on 
the  cause  of  disease.  The  phagocyte  plainly 
tells  us  also  that  the  cause  of  disease  is  not  an 
imaginary  entity  or  influence,  but  a  real  being 
which,  in  many  cases  at  least,  is  a  living 
organism. 

There  is  of  course  no  real  break  in  the  history 
of  medicine,  but  from  the  time  of  Hippocrates 
to  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
though  several  important  discoveries  were  made, 
and  new  remedies  and  modes  of  treatment  of 
more  or  less  value  were  introduced,  the  progress 


1 10  THINGS  OF  THE  MIND. 

of  medical  science  was  altogether  unsatisfac- 
tory. Old  theories  gave  place  to  new,  and  new 
methods  were  substituted  for  the  old,  but  the 
gain  was  not  great.  The  revival  of  the  study  of 
the  writings  of  Hippocrates  and  Galen,  in  the 
fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries,  did  not  pro- 
duce any  important  reform.  Physicians  con- 
tinued to  rely  upon  authorities  rather  than  on 
facts.  The  discovery  of  the  circulation  of  the 
blood,  made  by  Harvey  in  the  early  part  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  was  a  significant  event,  but 
it  produced  no  immediate  effect  on  the  practice 
of  medicine.  Faith  in  the  old  dogmas  was 
weakened,  but  belief  in  the  good  or  necessity  of 
schools  and  systems  survived.  The  names  of 
Sydenham,  Boerhaave,  Hoffman,  Stahl,  Haller, 
Cullen,  Brown  and  Rush  will  retain  a  place  in 
the  history  of  medicine,  but  their  contributions 
to  the  science  and  art  of  healing  have  little 
historic  significance.  The  Vienna  school  of  the 
eighteenth  century  deserves  recognition  for  its 
insistence  upon  the  necessity  of  carefully  study- 
ing the  facts  of  disease  during  life  and  after 
death  ;  and  also  because  Avenbrugger,  a  Vienna 
physician,  was  the  first  to  employ  percussion  as 
a  means  of  diagnosing  pulmonary  affections. 
Thus  we  approach  the  modern  school  of  medi- 
cine, in  which  the  methods  of  physical  science 
are  adopted,  while  little  importance  is  given  to 


PROFESSIONAL   EDUCATION.  Ill 

theories  or  to  hypotheses,  unless  when  they  are 
used  as  guides  in  the  search  after  facts.  Start- 
ing with  the  assumption  that  vital  phenomena, 
both  in  health  and  disease,  conform  to  laws  and 
are  therefore  intelligible,  the  new  school,  with 
the  aid  of  new  instruments,  has  created  new 
sciences,  which  have  a  more  or  less  direct  bear- 
ing upon  the  practice  of  medicine.  The  study 
of  organic  types,  microscopic  anatomy,  ex- 
perimental pathology  and  therapeutics,  have 
brought  knowledge  where  ignorance  had  pre- 
vailed; while  auscultation,  percussion,  micro- 
scopy, physiological  chemistry,  the  thermometer, 
the  ophthalmoscope,  the  auricular  speculum  and 
the  laryngoscope  enable  the  physician  to  make 
diagnosis  certain  in  cases  in  which  hitherto  he 
had  been  left  to  surmise.  The  increasing  number 
of  known  parasitical  organisms,  which  are  the 
causes  of  disease,  permit  him  to  substitute  real 
for  imaginary  etiological  entities.  His  view  is 
clearer,  his  judgment  sounder,  his  treatment 
more  effective  for  he  moves  in  an  intelligible 
world.  His  feet  are  in  the  way  which  has  led 
to  all  the  marvellous  achievements  of  physical 
science.  In  the  presence  of  forces  which  are 
pregnant  with  life  or  death,  he  no  longer  fights 
blindly,  or  with  the  fatal  confidence  of  the 
empiric.  If  he  have  theories  they  rest  on  the 
basis  of  facts  carefully  observed  and  accurately 


112  THINGS   OF   THE   MIND. 

determined.  Medicine  henceforth  is  so  guided, 
surrounded  and  protected  by  science,  that  it  can 
no  longer  drift  with  the  currents  and  counter- 
currents  of  opinion  and  speculation.  The  great- 
ness and  worth  of  the  present  age  lie  in  its 
intellectual  activity  rather  than  in  its  material 
progress.  There  is  in  it  a  mental  stimulus  as 
strong  as  that  which  impelled  the  Greeks  of  the 
age  of  Pericles,  to  produce,  in  every  sphere  of 
thought  and  action,  the  works  that  still  remain 
as  an  exhaustless  source  of  inspiration.  The 
discovery  of  America  is  unimportant  and  com- 
monplace when  compared  with  the  discoveries 
made  by  scientific  investigators.  We  live  now 
not  merely  in  a  new  world,  but  in  new  worlds, 
whose  boundaries  are  enlarging,  whose  secrets 
are  ever  revealing  themselves  to  patient  seekers. 
In  the  heavens  and  on  the  earth  we  see  things 
never  before  beheld  by  the  eye  of  man.  The 
impulse  of  this  movement  is  necessarily  felt  by 
the  learned  professions.  The  light  which  has 
been  thrown  upon  the  past,  upon  the  earliest 
struggles  of  mankind  to  attain  a  human  kind  of 
existence,  upon  the  evolution  of  languages  and 
customs,  upon  the  primitive  conceptions  of  right, 
of  duty  and  of  law,  has  made  possible  a  science 
of  sociology  which  gives  us  a  larger  and  pro- 
founder  view  of  the  sphere  of  man's  life.  Biology 
interprets  the  problems  of  psychology  and  psy- 


PROFESSIONAL   EDUCATION.  113 

chology  provides  methods  for  pedagogy.  The 
comparative  study  of  religions,  the  more  com- 
prehensive grasp  of  the  history  of  philosophic 
systems,  the  criticisims  of  the  Sacred  Writings 
with  the  aid  of  philology,  anthropolgy  and 
ethnology,  the  more  accurate  analysis  of  the 
elements  of  thought  and  the  juster  appreciation 
of  the  value  and  import  of  knowledge  itself, 
have  opened  new  realms  to  all  who  love  the 
things  of  the  mind,  and,  first  of  all,  to  those 
whose  office  compels  them  to  deal  with  the 
problems  of  the  unseen  world,  with  the  super- 
natural, which  is  God  and  the  soul.  In  none  of 
the  professions  has  the  intellectual  movement  of 
the  age  produced  such  wholesome  and  satis- 
factory results  as  in  medicine.  In  law  and  the- 
ology the  influence  of  the  scientific  spirit  tends 
to  disturb  and  unsettle,  but  in  medicine  it  is 
altogether  salutary.  The  modern  physician, 
putting  aside  the  old  methods  as  unsuited  to  the 
study  of  vital  phenomena,  no  longer  seeks  to 
know  what  life  is,  but  regards  it  merely  as  a 
natural  process,  manifesting  itself  in  health  and 
disease ;  for,  if  life  is  health  it  is  also  disease, 
since  it  inevitably  tends  towards  and  ends  in 
death,  though  no  specific  malady  should  inter- 
vene to  hasten  the  march  to  the  grave.  Death 
is  the  correlative  of  life,  as  disease  is  the  cor- 
relative of  health.  To  think  the  one  is  to  imply 

8 


114  THINGS    OF  THE  MIND. 

the  other.  It  is  the  physician's  business,  then, 
to  acquaint  himself  with  the  structure  and  func- 
tions of  the  body  in  health  and  disease.  With- 
out a  knowledge  of  anatomy  and  physiology  he 
cannot  understand  disease,  which  is  a  deviation 
from  the  line  of  normal  physiological  conditions, 
whether  structural  or  functional.  The  theory  of 
disease,  however,  is  but  an  idle  speculation  if  it 
lead  not  to  the  means  of  cure ;  and  hence  path- 
ology calls  for  therapeutics,  the  theory  of  reme- 
dies, which  is  also  a  science,  for  nearly  every 
article  of  the  materia  medica  produces  an  effect 
on  the  organism  which  may  be  ascertained  with 
scientific  precision.  But  when  there  is  question 
of  adapting  remedies  to  diseases  the  wisest  phy- 
sicians recognize  now  more  than  ever  before 
that  they  enter  an  obscure  region  where  they 
feel  rather  than  see  their  way.  The  best  doctors 
give  least  medicine,  and  they  would  give  less  if 
their  patients  were  not  persuaded  that  the  most 
certain  way  to  frighten  death  is  to  keep  swallow- 
ing poison.  The  practice  of  medicine  then  is 
still,  to  a  great  extent,  traditional  and  empirical, 
and  however  wide  and  profound  the  physician's 
knowledge  may  be,  he  soon  learns  that  cease- 
less vigilance  and  attention  to  innumerable  de- 
tails can  alone  keep  him  from  becoming  a 
murderer.  Hahnemann  and  his  disciples  have 
doubtless  rendered  service  by  showing  how  well 


PROFESSIONAL  EDUCATION.  115 

the  sick  may  prosper  by  taking,  at  brief  inter- 
vals, a  sugar  pellet  or  a  teaspoonful  of  water. 

Physicians  more  and  more  insist  upon  the 
importance  of  regimen  and  diet,  of  pure  air  and 
healthful  occupations,  upon  sufficient  sleep  and 
rest,  upon  cleanliness  of  person  and  surround- 
ings. They  know  that,  in  innumerable  instances, 
disease  is  the  result  of  careless,  ignorant,  or 
vicious  habits,  that  function  and  appetite  are 
correlative,  and  that  excessive  indulgence  per- 
verts the  action  of  the  organs  which  insure  the 
harmonious  play  of  the  vital  forces.  They  know 
that  diseases  have  definite  causes,  and  that  it  is 
their  business  to  keep  these  harmful  agencies 
away  from  those  who  are  well,  and  to  help  nature 
to  expel  them  from  those  who  are  ill.  With  the 
increase  of  knowledge  the  scope  of  all  the  pro- 
fessions is  enlarged,  and  we  may  now  no  longer 
look  on  the  physician  as  simply  a  healer  or  an 
assuager  of  pain.  It  is  his  business  to  under- 
stand the  laws  of  hygiene  and  sanitation,  to 
acquaint  himself  with  climatic  conditions,  to  know 
the  kinds  of  dwelling,  clothing  and  diet,  which 
are  most  favorable  to  health.  He  should,  in  a 
word,  as  his  title  of  doctor  implies,  be  a  teacher. 
The  homely  proverb  that  "  an  ounce  of  preven- 
tion is  better  than  a  pound  of  cure/'  which  has 
given  rise  to  many  maxims  and  observances 
more  or  less  salutary,  he  should  be  able  to  inter- 


Il6  THINGS  OF  THE  MIND, 

pret  and  apply  in  the  light  of  scientific  knowl- 
edge. There  is  no  country  in  which  such  teach- 
ing is  more  needed  than  in  our  own,  or  in  which 
it  might  be  given  with  stronger  hope  of  good 
results.  America,  it  is  commonly  said,  is  the 
paradise  of  quacks.  Whoever  sufficiently  adver- 
tises the  most  worthless  nostrum  becomes  rich; 
whoever  preaches  a  faith-cure,  or  a  science  cure, 
or  a  magnetic  cure,  or  a  blue-glass  cure,  finds  a 
crowd  of  fools  for  followers.  In  the  presence  of 
the  evils  caused  by  this  universal  quackery,  should 
the  physician  confine  himself  simply  to  the  treat- 
ment of  disease?  Is  it  not  his  duty  as  a  lover  of 
God  and  of  man,  as  a  patriot  and  a  scholar, 
whether  he  lives  in  some  isolated  hamlet  or  in  a 
great  city,  to  become  a  public  teacher?  Who  else 
is  able  to  diffuse  the  knowledge  of  the  laws  of 
health  and  the  causes  of  disease  with  so  much 
authority  and  ability?  To  those  who  should 
object  that  the  popularizing  of  medical  science 
might  prove  hurtful,  I  would  reply  that  belief  in 
the  good  of  ignorance  or  the  harmfulness  of 
knowledge  is  superstition.  It  is  always  good  to 
know  a  thing,  and  the  evils  which  the  spread  of 
intelligence  may  cause  are  not  only  more  than 
counterbalanced  by  the  benefits  knowledge  con- 
fers, but  they  tend  to  correct  themselves.  If 
ignorance  is  bliss,  it  is  the  bliss  of  fools  or  cow- 
ards. When  an  epidemic  threatens  there  is  a 


PROFESSIONAL   ED UCA  TION.  \  \  7 

general  alarm  and  every  precaution  is  taken  to 
exclude  it;  but  the  foes  of  life  are  always  around 
us,  lying  in  ambush.  They  may  lurk  in  the  air 
we  breathe,  in  the  food  we  eat,  in  the  water  we 
drink,  in  the  clothing  we  wear,  in  the  houses  we 
live  in,  in  the  domestic  animals  that  supply  us 
with  nourishment  or  lie  about  our  hearths,  on 
the  lips  of  those  we  love.  It  is  believed  that  we 
all  are  intelligent  enough  when  our  interests  are 
at  stake,  but  professional  men  know  how  false  is 
this  tenet.  It  is  a  delusion  to  imagine  that  the 
multitude  think.  Their  notions  of  health,  of 
right,  of  religion,  are  traditional  or  empirical, 
and  to  rouse  them  to  self-activity,  to  observation, 
and  reflection,  is  the  best  work  an  enlightened 
mind  can  perform.  "  As  a  man  thinketh  in  his 
heart,  so  is  he."  "  With  desolation  is  the  earth 
made  desolate,  because  there  is  no  one  who 
thinketh  within  his  heart."  To  take  but  a  par- 
tial view  of  the  subject,  does  not  daily  experi- 
ence teach  the  physician,  the  lawyer  and  the 
priest,  that  the  ignorance,  the  thoughtlessness 
and  indifference  of  those  who  seek  their  help 
are  chief  impediments  to  the  success  of  their 
efforts  to  render  service?  Those  who  know 
least,  not  only  misunderstand  us,  but  they  are 
also  quickest  to  condemn.  In  diffusing  knowl- 
edge we,  of  the  learned  professions,  work  for 
our  own  good  not  less  than  for  the  general  wel- 


I  1 8  THINGS  OF  THE  MIND. 

fare.  The  more  intelligent  the  people  are,  the 
more  responsive  they  become  to  the  teachings 
of  religion  and  science.  Sanitary  regulations 
enable  civilized  nations  to  exclude  or  control 
pestilence  and  contagion.  A  proper  system  of 
sewerage  seems  to  have  freed  Memphis  from 
the  epidemics  which  threatened  its  existence. 
There  is  not  a  farm-house,  not  a  cottage  in  the 
smallest  village,  in  which  a  knowledge  of  the 
laws  pf  health  and  of  the  causes  of  disease  might 
not  be  made  the  means  of  saving  human  lives. 
How  seldom  are  the  heads  of  families  practically 
attentive  to  the  fact  that  water  may  be  limpid 
and  pleasant  to  the  taste  and  yet  carry  the  germs 
of  fatal  maladies,  which  may  lurk  even,  with 
merely  suspended  vitality,  in  the  clearest  ice ! 
How  little  do  they  heed  the  seeds  of  disease 
which  are  concealed  in  damp  cellars,  in  unven- 
tilated  rooms,  in  unaired  closets,  in  carpets,  in 
the  cushions  of  chairs,  and  in  the  dried  sputa  of 
the  tuberculous !  The  land  is  filled  with  the 
clamorous  denouncers  of  drunkenness  and  poi- 
sonous liquors  ;  but  gluttony  and  badly  prepared 
food  are  the  causes  of  more  sickness  and  misery 
than  alcoholic  drink,  and  the  army  of  reformers 
might  well  reserve  part  of  the  abuse  they  heap 
upon  distillers  and  saloon-keepers  for  cooks  and 
confectioners.  My  argument  against  women  is 
that  they  have  made  us  a  nation  of  dyspeptics, 


PROFESSIONAL  EDUCATION.  1 19 

having  from  time  immemorial  held  undisputed 
sway  in  the  kitchen.  Why  should  we  entrust 
the  framing  of  our  laws  to  those  who  have  ruined 
our  stomachs?  If  the  food  they  eat  were  less 
indigestible  men  would  be  more  sober.  How 
few  practically  recognize  the  fact  that  the  func- 
tion the  skin  performs  is  as  essential  to  health 
as  that  of  the  lungs,  or  the  liver,  or  the  kidneys  ! 
Is  it  not  strange  that  the  daily  bath  should  not 
have  been  made  a  prescription  of  religion,  since 
cleanliness  is  next  to  godliness?  At  all  events 
it  is  a  secret  of  health  and  long  life,  and  he  is  a 
wise  physician  who  makes  himself  an  advocate 
of  frequent  ablutions.  How  is  it  possible  to 
like  or  even  respect  those  who  fail  to  begin  each 
day  by  plunging  in  the  purifying  wave,  or,  at 
least,  by  showering  over  themselves  the  clear 
and  silvery  spray.  I  should,  without  much  hes- 
itation, give  my  confidence  to  a  stranger  about 
whom  I  might  know  little  else  than  that  he  never 
omits  this  clean  ablution  whether  the  thermome- 
ter register  thirty  degrees  below  or  ninety  de- 
grees above  zero ;  but  with  one  who  does  not 
bathe  I  should  not  care  to  have  any  dealings. 
When  I  reflect  how  unwashed  many  of  the  heroes 
must  have  been,  from  Hector  to  Bonaparte,  with 
the  itch,  I  feel  a  sense  of  disillusion ;  and  when 
I  hear  Americans  praised,  what  pleases  me  most 
is  the  assertion  that  they  bathe  more  than  other 


I2O  THINGS  OF  THE  MIND. 

people.  The  bath  is  not  merely  hygienic ;  it  is 
a  test  of  civilization. 

Who,  so  well  as  the  physician,  is  able  to 
impart  a  knowledge  of  the  laws  of  heredity  in 
their  bearing  upon  disease  and  immorality? 
Why  should  foolish  young  people  be  permitted 
to  marry,  when  every  wise  man  knows  that  their 
union  will  result  in  a  diseased  or  depraved  off- 
spring? The  end  of  marriage  is  not  to  console 
weak- and  sentimental  beings,  but  to  provide  a 
nobler  race.  As  the  life  of  the  soul  is  enrooted 
in  that  of  the  body,  the  physician  is  called  to 
minister  to  moral  as  well  as  to  physical  infirmi- 
ties. An  American  doctor,  as  you  know,  claims 
to  have  discovered  a  cure  for  drunkenness ;  and 
whether  or  not  his  remedies  have  any  efficacy,  it 
is  a  gain  to  create  a  wide  recognition  of  the  fact 
that  dipsomania,  in  many  cases,  at  least,  is  a 
disease  of  the  nervous  system.  Indeed,  it  seems 
to  be  altogether  probable,  that  sensual  excess 
of  whatever  kind  is  as  often  the  result  as  the 
cause  of  abnormal  physical  conditions.  If  this 
be  so,  what  a  world  is  not  opened  to  the  medical 
profession  wherein  they  may  labor  with  the  hope 
of  being  able  to  confer  on  their  fellow-men  not 
bodily  health  alone,  but  moral  and  religious 
blessings  as  well? 

Whoever  belongs  to  a  learned  profession 
should  have  more  than  professional  knowledge 


PROFESSIONAL  EDUCATION.  121 

and  skill.  He  should  be  a  representative  of  the 
science  and  the  culture  of  his  age.  Where  the 
standard  of  education  for  the  liberal  professions 
is  low,  the  life  of  the  nation  cannot  be  high. 

Human  perfection  is  health  of  body  and  soul, 
manifesting  itself  in  the  wholesome  activity  of 
every  function  and  faculty ;  and  in  a  free  coun- 
try the  natural  stimulators  of  this  activity  are 
the  lawyer,  the  physician,  and  the  minister  of 
religion.  In  a  democracy,  if  the  people  are  to 
escape  the  rule  of  demagogues  and  thieves,  they 
must  have  the  guidance  of  superior  minds  and 
great  characters,  and  where  shall  they  be  found 
if  not  in  the  liberal  professions?  As  I  look 
upon  the  professions,  they  are  all  religious,  for 
the  end  and  aim  of  all  of  them  is  to  make  health, 
justice,  and  righteousness  prevail ;  and  what  is 
this  but  to  make  the  will  of  God  prevail? 

Nor  has  the  physician  a  baser  office  than  the 
lawyer  or  the  priest.  If  you  cripple  the  animal 
in  man,  you  clip  the  angel's  wings,  for  the  nobler 
passions  draw  their  life  and  energy  from  the 
lower.  Many  things,  we  might  imagine,  are 
dearer  than  life, —  honor,  for  instance,  and  truth 
and  love ;  but  in  all  this,  as  in  whatever  else  has 
worth,  life  is  present  and  gives  it  value.  What 
we  first  demand  of  professional  men  whatever 
their  special  calling,  is  that  they  be  upright, 
honorable  and  humane.  Character  is  essential, 


(UNIVERSITY) 


122  THINGS  OF  THE  MIND. 

for  character  gives  to  ability  its  human  quality, 
makes  it  something  we  can  trust,  makes  it  benefi- 
cent. Thus  I  complete  my  earlier  thought  that 
professional  men  are  united  by  indissoluble 
bonds.  They  all  alike  find  their  reason  for 
being,  in  the  needs  and  miseries  of  man ;  they  all 
minister  to  his  ills,  and  to  all,  science,  culture, 
and  religion  supply  the  means  which  render 
them  able  to  help. 

A  classic  writer  has  said  that  no  better  fortune 
can  befall  a  city  than  to  have  within  its  walls 
two  or  three  superior  men  who  agree  to  work 
together  for  the  common  welfare.  Who  shall 
these  two  or  three  superior  men  be,  if  not  the 
lawyer,  the  physician,  and  the  minister  of  reli- 
gion? They  are  found  in  every  village,  and  if 
they  hold  themselves  abreast  of  the  science  and 
culture  of  the  age,  and  are  also  men  of  character, 
who  shall  estimate  the  value  of  their  combined 
influence?  It  is  the  nature  of  science,  culture, 
and  religion  to  be  communicable,  and  they  who 
diffuse  these  blessings  are  the  most  useful  and 
the  noblest  men.  They  alone  have  the  right  to 
say  to  their  fellows :  Provide  for  us,  while  we 
make  your  lives  more  healthful  and  pleasant, 
purer  and  higher. 

But  how  shall  I,  a  Kentuckian,  addressing,  for 
the  first  time  in  many  years,  an  audience  of 
Kentuckians,  close  without  growing  conscious  of 


PROFESSIONAL  EDUCATION.  123 

the  inspiration  of  my  native  air?  So  long  as 
we  can  recall  with  pleasure  the  divine  moments 
of  our  youth,  they  have  not  wholly  fled,  but 
when  they  come  back  to  us  like  mocking  ques- 
tioners, asking  what  good  or  truth  or  beauty 
there  was  in  the  things  which  once  rilled  us  with 
delight,  then  alas !  youth  is  gone,  forever  gone, 
and  we  have  ceased  to  be  ourselves.  But  oh ! 
I  can  remember,  how  in  the  days  of  my  young 
love,  walking  in  the  fields  and  in  the  woods  that 
lay  about  my  home,  I  scarcely  knew  my  feet 
touched  the  ground,  but  felt  that  my  deep  glow- 
ing soul  might  mount  heavenward  until  it  blended 
with  the  infinite  ether,  and  became  immortal 
harmonious  pulsings  of  light  and  warmth,  of  joy 
and  ecstasy.  And  later,  how  often  from  the 
Cincinnati  hills  have  I  looked  southward  across 
the  river  and  seemed  to  behold  there  a  fairer 
world, —  looked  with  a  longing  such  as  Adam 
may  have  felt  when  he  turned  his  eyes  towards 
lost  paradise. 

Not  Syracuse,  nor  the  fair  Grecian  plain 

Saw  coursers  swift  as  thine,  sweet  home  of  mine, 
Nor  did  their  sacrificial  herds  outshine 

Thine  own,  whose  silken  flanks  are  without  stain. 

Not  there  on  rarer  flowers  fell  warm,  spring  rain, 
Nor  wore  the  heavens  a  beauty  more  divine, 
Nor  purer  maidens  knelt  at  holy  shrine, 

Nor  braver  men  held  warlike  death  for  gain. 


124  THINGS  OF  THE  MIND. 

Thou  wantest  but  the  poet  to  waft  thy  name 

In  rhythmic  numbers  through  the  earth  and  sky, 

Some  bard  divine,  with  strong,  heroic  aim, 
To  soar  aloft,  and  utter  deathless  cry  ; 

No  muse  has  touched  thy  lips  with  sacred  flame, 
To  bid  the  music  flow  which  cannot  die. 

Our  country  is  greater  than  our  State ;  it  fills  us 
with  larger  and  nobler  thoughts,  rouses  the  con- 
sciousness of  a  mightier  and  more  far-reaching 
destiny.  It  is  worthy  of  all  homage  and  love 
for  what  it  has  done,  and  more  worthy  still 
for  what  it  promises  to  do.  In  the  presence  of 
its  boundless  energies,  aspirations,  and  sym- 
pathies, the  greatest  even  feel  they  are  dwarfed. 
But  our  country,  in  a  more  intimate  sense,  is  our 
home.  He  who  has  no  home  has  no  country. 
Patriotism  is  the  spirit  of  the  father's  house, 
which  is  the  home  of  our  first  love  and  the  one 
to  which  we  turn  our  last  lingering  thoughts  as 
death's  curtain  drops.  Hence  our  State  comes 
closer  to  us  than  our  country;  it  awakens  ten- 
derer recollections,  weaves  about  us  the  tendrils 
of  more  gentle  and  fragrant  affections.  It  calls 
forth  feelings  which  glow  like  the  dawn,  which 
soften  and  mellow  like  the  evening  sky.  It 
blends  with  memories  of  the  twining  arms  of 
mothers  and  fathers,  of  the  warm,  unselfish 
devotion  of  youthful  friends.  The  thought  of 
it  is  interfused  with  clouds  and  showers  and 
the  songs  of  birds,  and  all  the  glories  of  the 


PROFESSIONAL   EDUCATION.  12$ 

unfolding  world  that  accompanied  us  when  we 
were  young. 

State  rights  in  the  old  sense  are  dead,  but 
while  the  heart  of  a  Kentuckian  throbs  State 
pride  cannot  die.  How  shall  we  better  serve 
our  country  than  by  loving  our  State  and  doing 
what  in  us  lies  to  strengthen,  purify,  and  illumine 
the  life  of  its  citizens?  I  ask  these  learned  phy- 
sicians whether  a  climate  which  produces  the 
noblest  breeds  of  animals,  should  not  be  favor- 
able to  the  noblest  breed  of  men? 

What  does  our  country  or  our  State,  what  does 
God  himself  demand  of  us,  but  that  we  grow  to 
the  full  measure  of  the  gifts  we  have  received? 

We  render  the  best  service  when  we  make 
ourselves  worthy  and  wise.  The  faithful  servant 
of  any  cause  is  not  a  vulgar  boaster,  but  a  true 
striver  after  the  best  things. 

When  Jenner  consulted  Dr.  Hunter  as  to 
whether  he  might  not  substitute  vaccination  for 
inoculation,  he  received  the  reply :  "  Don't  think, 
but  try."  He  tried  and  was  successful.  The 
right  motto,  however,  is  this :  "  Think  and  try, 
try  and  think."  Only  God  can  set  limits  to  what 
thought  and  effort  may  accomplish. 

I  will  not  exhort,  for  that  would  be  to  reproach, 
I  will  not  proffer  advice,  for  that  would  be  to 
insult,  but  I  will  ask  whether  you  know  anything 
better  than  the  pursuit  of  excellence?  Equality 


126  THINGS   OF  THE  MIND. 

is  a  figment  of  theorists,  inequality  is  nature's 
law.  As  well  not  be  at  all  as  be  common.  If 
the  equality  at  which  democracy  aims  means  the 
ostracism  of  superior  men,  it  is  a  curse;  a  bless- 
ing, if  it  means  the  placing  of  superior  men  in  the 
lead  that  they  may  guide  the  whole  people  to 
nobler  ideals  and  higher  truth.  The  best  free- 
dom is  that  which  is  favorable  to  the  develop- 
ment of  high  and  heroic  personalities ;  the  best 
education  that  which  fills  us  with  desire  for  all 
that  is  excellent.  It  is  good  to  be  wise  and  vir- 
tuous, but  it  is  also  good  to  be  healthy,  strong, 
brave,  honorable,  fair,  and  graceful.  It  is  bad  to 
be  ignorant  and  sinful,  but  it  is  also  bad  to  be 
sick,  weak,  cowrardly,  base,  ugly,  and  awkward. 
The  striving  after  perfection,  in  this  large  sense, 
blesses  and  dignifies  life.  It  is  a  cure  for  many 
ills;  it  makes  us  independent,  sufficient  for  our- 
selves, able  to  forego  praise  and  patronage;  for 
if  men  seek  not  our  aid,  when  we  have  made 
ourselves  worthy  and  capable,  the  loss  is  theirs, 
not  ours.  In  pursuing  these  high  aims,  we  feel 
that  we  are  living  for  God  and  our  country,  and 
we  may  even  deem  ourselves  fortunate  that  in 
the  early  years  of  our  professional  career  we 
have  little  else  to  do  than  to  improve  ourselves. 
Happy  is  he  who  having  found  the  highest  thing 
he  is  able  to  do,  gives  his  life  to  the  work. 

Go  forth,  then,  young  gentlemen,  to  perform 


PROFESSIONAL  EDUCATION.  I2/ 

the  noble  and  humane  tasks  that  will  be  set  you. 
The  dawn  of  a  more  glorious  day  has  risen  upon 
your  profession.  With  Hutten  you  may  exclaim : 
"  O  blessed  age  !  Minds  awaken,  sciences  bloom, 
—  it  is  a  joy  to  be  alive."  To  every  home  you 
visit  you  shall  bring  promise  of  life  and  health, 
and  it  will  not  be  your  fault,  if  when  you  depart, 
you  leave  not  a  sense  of  security  and  peace. 
So  live,  that  when  in  the  future  there  shall  be 
speech  of  the  worthiest  Kentuckians,  of  you  also 
mention  shall  be  made. 


CHAPTER   V. 

THEORIES    OF    LIFE    AND    EDUCATION. 

THAT  one  should  be  ignorant  who  has  capacity  for  knowl- 
edge, —  this  I  call  tragedy.  CARLYLE. 

TO  write  a  perfect  logic,  it  would  be  neces- 
sary to  write  a  perfect  treatise  on  man ; 
and  a  complete  theory  of  education  would  be 
a  complete  philosophy  of  human  nature.  The 
aim  and  end  of  education  is  to  bring  out  and 
strengthen  man's  faculties,  physical,  intel- 
lectual, and  moral ;  to  call  into  healthful  play 
his  manifold  capacities ;  and  to  promote  also 
with  due  subordination  their  harmonious  exer- 
cise; and  thus  to  fit  him  to  fulfil  his  high 
and  heaven-given  mission,  and  to  attain  his 
true  destiny.  This  would  seem  to  be  sim- 
ple enough,  and  the  most  opposite  schools  of 
thought  would  probably  find  this  statement 
sufficiently  large  to  embrace  all  their  differ- 
ences. Nevertheless  the  subject  of  education 
is  among  the  most  involved  and  difficult,  as  it 
is  among  those  which  bear  most  directly  upon 
the  highest  and  holiest  interests  of  mankind. 
The  difficulty  comes  in  part  from  the  nature  of 
man,  which  is  complex.  By  thought  he  belongs 


THEORIES  OF  LIFE  AND  EDUCATION.     1 29 

to  the  world  of  intellect;  by  will  to  the  moral 
world:  his  body  makes  him  brother  to  the 
sluggish  clod;  his  soul  gives  him  companion- 
ship with  angels,  and  the  whole  circumstance 
of  his  existence  involves  him  in  the  most 
complicated  relations  with  his  fellow-beings. 
There  is  not  merely  diversity  in  his  endow- 
ments, but  contrariety. 

The  difficulty  increases  when  we  come  to 
consider  the  modifications  produced  by  his  sur- 
roundings, —  the  ever-varying  and  counteract- 
ing influences  which  affect  his  character;  and 
yet,  in  such  manner  that  to  assign  to  each  cause 
its  proper  effect  in  the  total  result  is  impossible. 
Again,  the  phases  of  human  nature  in  the  same 
individual  are  so  various;  the  types  of  collec- 
tive bodies  of  men,  so  dissimilar;  the  features 
of  the  different  national  characters,  so  unlike; 
the  effects  produced  by  the  same  cause  upon  the 
same  person,  at  different  times,  so  opposite; 
the  force  of  climate,  of  physical  constitution, 
and  even  of  the  most  trivial  accidental  circum- 
stances, so  marked,  and  yet  so  little  subject 
to  human  foresight,  —  that,  taken  collectively, 
these  facts  of  themselves  seem  to  show,  that 
the  question  of  man's  perfect  and  complete 
education  is  most  intricate  and  involved.  No 
one  has  a  clear  knowledge  of  the  history  even 
of  his  own  life;  of  the  causes  of  his  progress 
9 


130  THINGS  OF  THE  MIND. 

and  retrogression ;  of  the  influences  that  sur- 
rounded the  birth  of  his  affections  and  the 
cradle  of  his  thoughts;  of  the  motives  that 
impelled  him  in  this  direction  or  in  that. 
Were  it  possible  to  see  ourselves  as  we  are, 
it  would  yet  be  impossible  to  see  clearly  the 
causes  which  have  made  us  what  we  are.  Reli- 
gious faith;  the  circumstances  of  birth  and 
country;  the  national  institutions  and  litera- 
ture; the  scenes  and  occupations  of  childhood; 
habits,  whether  good  or  evil,  formed  in  youth; 
these  and  a  thousand  other  influences,  often 
obscure  and  difficult  to  trace,  go  to  mould  a 
human  character. 

There  are  persons  who  have  been  confirmed 
in  virtue  by  having  the  bitterness  of  sin  and 
the  folly  of  wrong-doing  brought  home  to 
them  by  sad  experience.  Others,  on  the  con- 
trary, having  once  gone  astray,  never  return  to 
the  right  path,  but  wander  and  ever  wander, 
as  though,  like  our  first  parents,  by  a  first  fall, 
their  very  nature  had  been  tainted.  Who  can 
determine  the  influence  of  temperament  and  of 
inherited  disposition  in  any  given  character? 
And  yet  this  influence  ought  to  be  kept  in 
view  by  the  educator.  There  are  natures 
which  are  strengthened  and  ennobled  by  a 
discipline  which  would  weaken  and  degrade 
those  whose  endowments  are  of  a  different 


THEORIES  OF  LIFE   AND  EDUCATION.     131 

kind.  What  fine  discernment  and  deep  in- 
sight are  needed  to  bring  out  the  antagonistic 
faculties  without  permitting  them  to  clash  and 
mutilate  one  another.  The  mechanical  trade 
which  requires  the  use  of  the  arms  alone, 
gives  to  them  an  abnormal  strength  at  the  ex- 
pense of  other  members  of  the  body,  and  thus 
destroys  the  symmetry  and  beauty  of  the  human 
frame.  Excess  of  physical  exercise  diminishes 
the  power  to  think;  and  great  devotion  to  in- 
tellectual culture  has  a  tendency,  not  only  to 
weaken  the  body,  but  to  enfeeble  the  strength 
of  moral  conviction  also,  and  consequently  to 
undermine  the  basis  of  all  true  character.  The 
pure  intellect  is  not  the  sufficient  measure  of 
the  reality  of  things,  and  overweening  confi- 
dence in  its  power  leads  to  scepticism.  In 
the  same  way  the  development  of  the  will  and 
of  moral  consciousness,  without  corresponding 
mental  enlightenment,  may  beget  superstition 
and  fanaticism,  —  "the  zeal  which  is  not  of 
knowledge."  Even  in  the  same  faculty  there 
is  such  a  diversity  of  operation,  that  the  edu- 
cation of  the  intellect  or  of  the  conscience 
alone,  if  we  could  consider  them  as  isolated, 
would  still  be  most  difficult.  Imagination  is 
developed  at  the  expense  of  judgment;  the 
power  of  analysis  interferes  with  the  more 
wholesome  synthetic  operations  of  the  mind; 


132  THINGS  OF  THE  MIND. 

and  metaphysical  intuition  is  often  found  in  in- 
verse ratio  to  common  sense.  Equilibrium  of 
moral  character  is  not  more  easily  produced. 
Considered  in  themselves,  the  virtues  all  con- 
spire to  form  the  perfect  man;  but  the  limita- 
tions of  human  nature  prevent  this  ideal 
harmony;  and  hence,  we  find  that  courage 
interferes  with  meekness,  independence  with 
humility,  generosity  with  economy,  and  confi- 
dence with  prudence.  The  difficulty  then  is 
manifest,  and  it  is  also  evident  that  no  system 
can  be  devised  by  which  a  perfect  education 
will  be  secured.  And,  in  fact,  to  trust  greatly 
to  any  educational  mechanism  is  a  dangerous 
illusion.  Growth  of  soul  is  a  spiritual  process, 
and  can  be  promoted  only  by  spiritual  agen- 
cies. Man,  and  not  the  school  system,  is  the 
true  educator;  and  to  believe  that  machinery, 
so  powerful  within  its  own  sphere,  is  also  able 
to  form  worthy  men  and  women,  is  a  gross 
superstition.  It  is  none  the  less  true,  how- 
ever, that  education  cannot  be  carried  on 
without  the  aid  of  mechanical  appliances;  and 
hence  the  necessity  of  systems,  and  of  attempts 
to  realize  them.  Every  system  of  education 
is  based  upon  a  theory,  which  is  derived  from 
views  concerning  man's  nature  and  destiny. 
What  is  man?  What  ought  he  to  be?  What 
is  his  chief  business  in  life?  Has  he  a  destiny 


THEORIES   OF  LIFE  AND  EDUCATION.     133 

beyond  this  life?  If  so,  has  his  conduct  in 
this  life  a  bearing  upon  his  future  state? 
These  are  questions  which  necessarily  come 
up  for  consideration  when  we  attempt  to  form 
a  theory  of  education;  and  this  theory  will 
be  shaped  by  the  answers  which  we  accept. 
A  system  of  education  is,  in  fact,  the  expres- 
sion of  a  universal  philosophy,  embracing  God, 
man,  and  nature;  and  hence,  nothing  throws 
more  light  upon  the  real  thought  of  an  age 
than  its  views  upon  this  subject.  An  atten- 
tive examination  of  this  matter  will  not  only 
reveal  what  men  really  hold  to  be  true,  but  it 
will  also  bring  out,  as  in  relief,  the  relative 
importance  which  they  attach  to  their  professed 
beliefs,  and  the  strength  of  conviction  with 
which  they  hold  them. 

In  illustration,  we  will  first  revert  to  the 
classic  nations,  whose  religion  was  a  kind  of 
nature-worship,  and  who,  though  they  believed 
in  a  future  existence,  looked  upon  this  life  as 
alone  joyous  and  happy.  Hellenic  religion, 
which  had  its  origin  in  the  deification  of  na- 
ture, found  its  highest  expression  in  the  state, 
whose  tutelary  divinities  were  the  heroes  by 
whom  it  had  been  founded  or  successfully  de- 
fended. The  state  was  absolute  and  supreme; 
and  man's  first  duty  and  privilege  was  to  be  of 
service  to  his  country.  The  future  life  was  to 


134  THINGS   OF   THE  MIND. 

be  cheerless  in  the  land  of  shadows  and  gloom; 
here  we  drink  in  the  blessed  light  and  air  of 
heaven ;  here  is  the  green  earth,  here  the  flow- 
ing waters,  here  all  things  invite  to  joy. 

In  accordance  with  these  views  of  man  and 
life,  education  among  the  Greeks  is  patriotic 
and  aesthetic.  In  Sparta,  the  sole  aim  is  to 
discipline  the  man  into  the  perfect  soldier, 
and  at  Athens  an  element  of  culture  and  refine- 
ment is  added,  which  is  opposed  to  the  war- 
like temper,  and  the  influence  of  which  led  to 
the  decay  of  Grecian  civilization.  The  moral 
education  which  teaches  the  individual  that 
he  has  duties  and  responsibilities  which  tran- 
scend his  earthly  sphere,  and  which  make  him 
accountable  to  an  infinite  Being,  and  an  order 
of  things  which  is  eternal,  was  neglected.  In 
his  noblest  work  Plato  has  left  us  an  elaborate 
theory  of  education,  in  which  he  sacrifices 
both  the  freedom  of  the  individual  and  the 
rights  of  the  family  to  the  state. 

With  the  Romans,  too,  the  state  was 
supreme;  but  their  character  was  more  serious 
and  practical  than  that  of  the  cheerful  and 
pleasure-loving  Greeks.  And  hence,  to  the 
military  training  which  prepared  them  to  win 
victories  for  their  country,  was  added  a  juristic 
education  which  taught  them  to  watch  jealously 
over  their  rights.  When  by  the  conquest  of 


THEORIES  OF  LIFE  AND  EDUCATION.     135 

Greece,  they  were  brought  into  contact  with 
aesthetic  culture,  it  was  again  found  incom- 
patible with  the  patriotic  and  military  temper, 
and  gradually  undermined  Roman  as  it  had 
destroyed  Grecian  civilization.  Religion  was 
held  to  be  a  function  of  the  state,  and  hence 
religious  education  was  made  subordinate  and 
auxiliary  to  the  patriotic  spirit.  Man's  first 
and  highest  duty  was  to  his  country;  and  both 
the  individual  and  the  family  were  sacrificed 
to  the  state.  Hellenism  is  negatively  charac- 
terized by  want  of  moral  earnestness.  The 
Greek  is  intellectually  active;  is  eager  to  see 
things  as  they  are,  and  finds  the  most  childlike 
and  real  delight  in  whatever  is  beautiful;  but 
he  has  no  sense  of  sin,  no  awful  consciousness 
of  God's  presence  and  holiness.  He  argues 
and  disputes;  creates  philosophy  and  poetry 
and  all  the  arts,  but  perishes  for  having  failed 
to  perceive  the  paramount  importance  of  con- 
duct. His  desire  to  see  things  as  they  are, 
degenerates  into  sophistry;  his  love  of  the 
beautiful  becomes  sensuality;  and  he  himself 
remains  an  eternal  example  of  the  impotence 
of  the  noblest  endowments,  where  there  is  no 
basis  of  moral  earnestness  and  religious  faith. 

Judaism  took  a  different  view  of  man,  and 
consequently  formed  a  different  theory  of  edu- 
cation. The  idea  of  God,  the  Creator  of  all 


136  THINGS  OF   THE  MIND. 

things,  and  wholly  free  from  the  control  of 
nature,  is  the  dominant  thought  of  Hebraism. 
Hence  man's  primal  duty  is  not  to  deified  per- 
sonifications of  natural  forces,  but  to  God, 
who  loves  righteousness  and  hates  iniquity; 
whose  will  is  law,  and  its  fulfilment  blessed- 
ness; and  its  violation,  which  is  sin,  the  only 
evil  and  supreme  misery.  Nature  is  no  longer 
independent  and  self-existent,  as  in  the  Greek's 
conception,  but  a  creature,  and  hence  the 
Hebrew  is  freed  from  her  control,  and  loves 
and  fears  God  alone.  Far  from  adoring  as 
divine  the  beauty  revealed  in  nature,  he  flees 
from  it  as  a  temptation  to  idolatry.  For  a 
similar  reason,  the  state  cannot  be  absolute 
and  supreme,  and  prominence  is  given  to  the 
family.  Education  is  patriarchal  and  reli- 
gious, and  is  directed  chiefly  to  morality. 

To  illustrate  still  further  the  manner  ;n 
which  the  theory  of  education  conforms  to  the 
generally  accepted  ideal  of  man,  let  us  turn 
from  the  consideration  of  national  types  to  the 
class  type. 

In  the  Middle  Ages,  the  most  characteristic 
figures  are  the  knight  and  the  monk.  The 
ideal  of  chivalry  is  free  military  service  in 
behalf  of  Christendom,  and  consequently  in 
behalf  of  all  who  are  wronged  and  oppressed ; 
and  among  these,  woman  takes  precedence  by 


THEORIES   OF  LIFE   AND  EDUCATION.     137 

virtue  of  the  supreme  charm  with  which  she 
appeals  to  the  heart  of  man.  With  a  view  to 
fit  him  for  this  noble  career,  the  boy,  when  he 
was  seven  years  old,  began  to  learn  the  manner 
of  offensive  and  defensive  warfare,  on  foot  and 
on  horseback ;  and  between  his  sixteenth  and 
eighteenth  year  he  was  raised  to  knighthood 
by  a  formal  ceremony.  His  intellectual  edu- 
cation was  neglected,  as  having  nothing  to  do 
with  the  main  purpose  of  his  life.  His  hand 
was  to  hold  the  sword  and  not  the  pen;  and 
even  in  modern  times  we  find,  in  proportion 
as  the  aristocratic  spirit  is  powerful,  a  want 
of  mental  flexibility  and  openness  to  ideas  in 
the  nobility.  Great  development  was  given 
to  the  moral  qualities  which  go  to  form  the 
knightly  character,  especially  courage  and  the 
sense  of  honor.  To  be  a  true  knight,  was  to 
be  sans  peur  et  sans  reproche.  The  exaggerated 
notion  of  the  worth  of  courage  and  the  extreme 
sensibility  to  honor,  which  were  fostered  by 
this  education,  led  to  the  fantastic  extrava- 
gancy of  knight-errantry,  and  finally  degener- 
ated into  vagabondism  and  quixotism,  which 
were  the  harbingers  of  the  decline  and  dissolu- 
tion of  chivalry. 

Education  is  the  effort  to  create  the  ideal 
man,  whether  absolutely  or  relatively  to  special 
vocations,  and  hence  the  theory  will  conform 


138  THINGS  OF  THE  MIND. 

to  the  received  notions  concerning  this  ideal. 
When  the  first  requisite  of  a  perfect  man  is 
thought  to  be  a  strong  and  athletic  body,  gym- 
nastic exercise  will  take  precedence  of  intel- 
lectual training;  when  the  chief  good  is  held 
to  be  an  enlightened  mind,  mental  activity 
will  be  stimulated,  even  though  the  body 
should  suffer.  Again,  each  vocation  will  have 
its  special  education.  The  training  of  the 
soldier  will  be  different  from  that  of  the 
lawyer;  the  physician  will  not  be  educated 
like  the  priest.  A  fashionable  mother,  who 
thinks  woman's  vocation  is  to  please  and  to  be 
pleased,  will  send  her  daughter  to  a  school  of 
manners,  where  she  will  be  taught  the  graces 
and  accomplishments  of  artificial  and  frivolous 
society.  The  unlikeness  of  the  different  special 
educations  arises  from  the  dissimilar  ideals  of 
the  various  vocations.  Knowledge,  whether 
got  in  a  military  academy  or  a  commercial 
college,  is  equally  good,  but  knowledge  is  not 
education.  Habits  of  thought  and  of  life  are 
more  than  knowledge,  and  the  habits  which 
are  necessarily  acquired  during  the  process  of 
education  may  render  knowledge  useless  or 
hurtful.  Every  educated  man  knows  much 
that  may  be  to  his  advantage  in  any  position, 
but  in  getting  this  knowledge  he  has  probably 
formed  habits  which,  in  avocations  different 


THEORIES  OF  LIFE  AND  EDUCATION.     139 

from  the  one  for  which  he  has  been  trained, 
will  be  of  greater  injury  than  his  learning  will 
be  of  help.  And  hence  Roger  Bacon's  axiom, 
that  "knowledge  is  power,"  is  fallacious.  The 
soldier  has  doubtless  learned  many  things 
which  the  tradesman  ought  to  know,  but  he 
has  also  conceived  a  notion  of  life,  of  honor, 
of  the  value  of  courage,  as  compared  with 
other  qualities,  which,  were  he  forced  to 
become  a  merchant,  would  prove  to  be  obsta- 
cles to  his  success. 

"An  Oxford  education,"  says  Mr.  Froude, 
"  fits  a  man  extremely  well  for  the  trade  of 
gentleman.  I  do  not  know  for  what  other 
trade  it  does  fit  him  as  at  present  constituted. 
More  than  one  man  who  has  taken  high  honors 
there,  who  has  learnt  faithfully  all  that  the 
university  undertakes  to  teach  him,  has  been 
seen  in  these  late  years  breaking  stones  upon 
a  road  in  Australia. "  A  better  stone-breaker 
he  would  doubtless  have  been  had  he  never 
studied  at  Oxford. 

An  illustration  of  the  truth  upon  which  I 
am  here  insisting  is  furnished  by  American 
society.  A  scientific  education  gives  to  the 
farmer  knowledge  which  he  can  put  to  practical 
use  in  a  thousand  ways.  Chemistry,  zoology, 
botany,  physiology,  mineralogy,  and  physics 
generally,  may  in  his  hands  be  converted  into 


140  THINGS  OF  THE   MIND. 

money.  Shall  we  not,  then,  give  to  every 
farmer  a  scientific  education?  No;  for  the 
habits  of  thought  and  sentiment  which  such 
education  creates  would  render  farm  life  dis- 
tasteful to  him;  and  in  fact,  we  find  in  our 
own  country  that  even  a  little  education  tends 
to  drive  the  young  men  from  tillage  of  the 
land  to  the  shop  life  of  towns  and  cities,  or, 
worse  still,  into  the  learned  professions,  and 
our  agricultural  colleges  train  young  men  for 
everything  except  the  work  for  which  they 
were  organized. 

It  can  hardly  be  necessary  to  insist  further 
upon  the  essential  relation  which  exists  between 
the  theory  of  human  destiny  and  the  theory  of 
human  education.  The  question,  what  educa- 
tion shall  I  give  my  child  ?  can  be  answered 
only  by  asking  another  question,  What  do  you 
desire  your  child  to  be  and  to  do?  The 
accepted  end  of  man  determines  the  aim  of 
the  educator  and  prescribes  his  system.  Now 
there  are  two  radically  different  ways  of 
viewing  human  life,  and  but  two.  We  may 
consider  it  as  complete  in  this  world,  or  as 
preparatory  to  a  higher  state  of  existence,  and 
corresponding  to  these  opposite  views  we  have 
the  secular  and  the  religious  theories  of  edu- 
cation. If  there  is  no  future  life,  a  system  of 
education  based  upon  the  recognition  of  such 


THEORIES  OF  LIFE  AND  EDUCATION.     141 

life  must  be  false  and  hurtful.  The  human 
mind  in  matters  of  this  kind  refuses  to  accept 
arguments  drawn  from  expediency.  To  hold 
that  there  is  no  God  and  no  immortal  human 
soul,  and  yet  to  educate  men  to  believe  in  God 
and  in  the  soul  from  a  notion  that  such  teach- 
ing has  a  social  value,  is  an  outrage.  Rather 
let  the  race  perish  than  be  kept  alive  by  an 
infinite  lie  and  worldwide  imposture.  On  the 
other  hand,  to  hold  that  God  is,  and  that  the 
soul  is  immortal,  and  yet  to  refuse  to  make 
the  system  of  education  conformable  to  this 
belief,  is  an  outrage;  and  here  again  the 
human  mind  refuses  to  accept  arguments  drawn 
from  expedience.  Whether  or  not  this  kind 
of  education  will  best  serve  the  cause  of  what 
is  called  civilization  and  progress,  is  of  small 
moment.  If  God  is,  He  is  first,  He  is  all  in 
all;  if  the  soul  is,  it  is  more  than  civilization 
and  progress. 

These  two  opposite  views  of  human  life  are 
in  fatal  antagonism,  and  there  can  be  no 
thought  of  compromise;  they  give  form  and 
character  to  the  two  hostile  armies  in  the 
eternal  warfare  between  spirit  and  matter, 
the  temporal  and  the  eternal,  the  Christ  and 
the  world.  That  the  view  whose  horizon  is 
bounded  by  man's  present  life  is  widely 
accepted,  there  can  be  no  doubt.  It  has  its 


^UNIVERSITY; 


142  THINGS  OF   THE  MIND. 

philosophy,  its  ethics,  its  political  economy, 
its  sociology,  its  pedagogy,  and  hopes  to  have 
its  religion.  It  is  not  a  happy  or  joyful  belief, 
yet  it  is  full  of  confidence  and  eager  courage,  — 
a  confidence  and  a  courage  born  not  of  an  acci- 
dental or  a  casual  insight  into  the  nature  of 
things,  but  of  a  range  of  thought  which  em- 
braces the  universe,  which  weighs  the  atom 
and  the  sun,  which  meditates  devoutly  upon 
the  life  of  the  animalcule  and  seeks  to  trace  it 
in  uninterrupted  ascent  to  man,  which  studies 
with  a  courage  that  never  despairs  the  most 
hidden  nerve-force,  hoping  against  hope  that 
it  will  yet  detect  it  breaking  into  thought  and 
soul  life.  It  has  not  the  mocking  and  frivol 
ous  temper  of  Voltaire,  nor  the  satanic  mood 
of  Byron.  So  wide  has  its  thought  grown, 
that  fanaticism  is  almost  impossible.  As 
Schiller  grieved  over  the  dead  gods  of  Greece, 
this  new  philosophy  is  filled  with  the  quiet 
sorrow  of  fatalism  in  contemplating  the  old 
faith.  There  is  a  kind  of  exultation  as  the 
light  breaks  in  upon  the  hidden  mysteries  of 
nature,  but  in  every  cry  of  triumph  there  is 
an  undertone  of  sadness,  almost  of  despair,  as 
from  a  half-conscious  feeling  that  the  end  of 
all  is  death  and  darkness  and  nothingness,  so 
that  what  began  as  the  most  self-satisfied 
optimism,  now  fatally  turns  to  pessimism, 


THEORIES  OF  LIFE  AND  EDUCATION.     143 

which  is  the  protest  of  the  unbelieving  soul 
against  sensualism  and  atheism. 

Let  us  trace  the  theoretical  development  of 
this  earth-creed,  and  then  study  its  historical 
manifestation,  in  so  far  as  it  bears  upon  the 
question  of  education  and  man's  destiny.  I 
shall  not  go  further  back  than  Kant,  who  is 
the  father  of  the  critical  philosophy,  and  who 
gave  the  impulse  to  the  intellectual  move- 
ment, which,  outside  the  Church,  is  bearing 
the  modern  mind  farther  and  farther  away 
from  metaphysics.  It  was  he  who  first  in- 
spired a  profound  distrust  of  whatever  is  beyond 
the  sphere  of  experience;  and  who  relegated 
to  the  region  of  the  unknown  the  reality  which 
underlies  the  phenomenon.  The  result  of  his 
thinkings  is  this:  The  phenomenon  alone  can 
be  known;  the  noumenon  is  not  cognoscible. 

The  human  reason  is  involved  in  radical 
contradictions  whenever  it  attempts  to  dogma- 
tize concerning  God,  the  soul,  and  the  uni- 
verse; and  hence  arise,  by  a  necessary  process, 
the  paralogisms  of  theology,  the  gratuitous 
hypotheses  of  psychology  and  the  antinomies 
of  cosmology.  Here  we  have  the  essential 
principles  of  the  Positivism  of  Comte,  and  of 
the  Cosmism  of  Herbert  Spencer, — absolute 
condemnation  of  metaphysics,  scepticism  con- 
cerning the  operations  of  our  highest  faculties, 


144  THINGS  OF  THE  MIND. 

and  the  elimination  of  all  reality  which  is  not 
perceived  by  the  senses. 

The  influence  of  Hegel,  which  has  been  so 
profoundly  felt  by  the  modern  world,  is  in  the 
same  direction.  The  identity  of  being  and  not 
being;  the  personality  of  God,  an  absurdity 
unworthy  of  the  attention  of  serious  thinkers; 
the  efficient  and  final  cause  of  the  world  imma- 
nent in  the  world ;  nothing  is,  but  everything  is 
becoming;  truth  and  reality  consequently  noth- 
ing absolute,  but  fugitive  forms  of  what  neither 
is,  nor  is  not,  — a  kind  of  intellectual  star-dust, 
which  is  not  nothing  nor  anything.  These  are 
some  of  the  characteristic  doctrines  of  Hegelian 
pantheism,  and  whatever  else  may  be  thought 
of  them,  they  unmistakably  confine  the  life  of 
man  to  this  world,  which  is  its  own  efficient 
and  final  cause.  The  universe  is  an  eternal 
flow,  in  which  truth  and  beauty  and  goodness 
are  but  the  changeful  waves  that  float  upon 
the  great  world-current  of  matter.  Each  fact, 
each  individual,  is  a  point  of  momentary  rest 
in  the  midst  of  universal  mobility. 

In  this  system  religion  has  but  an  accidental 
value,  and  the  interest  which  it  inspires  is 
chiefly  historical  and  psychological.  The  forms 
in  which  man  has  clothed  his  dreams  of  the 
divine  are  curious  as  an  archaeological  study  or 
as  a  branch  of  ethnology.  The  vulgar  and  pas- 


THEORIES  OF  LIFE  AND  EDUCATION.     145 

sionate  polemics  of  Protestantism  and  ration- 
alism are  obsolete.  Nothing  is  false  or  in  bad 
taste,  but  dogmatism.  Christianity  is  man's 
highest  effort  to  give  form  and  body  to  the 
infinite,  and  when  criticism  shall  have  finally 
done  away  with  all  its  dogmas,  it  will  be  left 
to  the  inspirations  of  the  heart,  to  be  trans- 
formed indefinitely  to  suit  the  requirements  of 
progress  and  civilization.  There  is  no  God, 
but  there  are  divine  things,  — culture,  liberty 
and  love.  This  is  the  soil  in  which  the  reli- 
gion of  humanity  flourishes;  the  worship  of 
man  taking  the  place  of  the  worship  of  God. 
In  the  beginning  there  is  no  God,  there  is 
nothing,  only  a  becoming;  in  the  end,  there  is 
man.  He  is  the  highest,  let  us  serve  him. 
And  since  the  individual  is  but  a  bubble  that 
bursts  and  remerges  in  the  general  air,  a  snow- 
flake,  remelting  into  the  element  from  which 
it  was  assumed  and  congealed  into  separate- 
ness,  let  him  dwindle  and  let  the  race  be  more 
and  more.  Let  the  weak  perish,  let  the  fittest 
survive,  let  all  things  belong  to  the  strong. 
This  is  the  eternal  law  of  our  sacred  mother, 
Nature,  who  alone  is  supreme.  An  ideal 
humanity,  truly,  is  only  an  abstraction;  it 
does  not  exist,  it  will  never  exist;  it  is  but  a 
phantom.  The  individual  is  contemptible. 
The  race  is  found  only  in  the  individual.  All 


146  THINGS  OF  THE  MIND. 

this  is  undeniable.  But  what  will  you  have? 
Our  hypothesis  excludes  God,  and  this  phan- 
tom of  humanity  is  all  that  remains  to  per- 
suade us  that  to  eat  and  to  drink  is  not  the 
only  wisdom.  In  this  system  too,  the  religion 
of  pantheistic  mysticism,  the  faith  of  Carlyle 
and  of  Emerson,  finds  its  justification.  Pan- 
theism is  obscure  and  nebular,  and  mysticism 
loves  the  uncertain  light  of  a  symbolical  and 
oracular  phraseology,  and  when  the  two  are 
combined,  it  is  not  easy  to  seize  the  real 
thought.  The  thought,  however,  is  panthe- 
istic, the  mood  is  mystic.  The  central  idea, 
upon  which  the  thousand  changes  of  poetic 
and  prophetic  rhapsody  are  rung,  and  from 
which  also  proceed  objurgation,  scorn,  anger, 
indignation,  withering  contempt,  whether  in 
the  jolting,  interrupted,  epigrammatic  style 
of  Emerson,  or  in  the  tumultuous,  turgid, 
apodictic  manner  of  Carlyle,  is  Pantheism. 
For  both  the  efficient  and  final  cause  of  the 
world  is  immanent  in  the  world,  and  the  tran- 
scendentalism is  modal  and  accidental.  To 
both,  systems  and  creeds  are  hateful,  and  to  be 
"a  swallower  of  formulas"  is  the  highest 
glory.  As  there  is  no  absolute  truth,  there  is 
no  permanent  symbol.  To  be  spontaneous, 
original,  and  strong,  is  the  only  merit.  The 
world's  great  men  know  no  other  law  than  the 


THEORIES  OF  LIFE  AND  EDUCATION.     147 

fatality  of  their  genius.  To  be  weak  is,  as 
Milton  says,  the  true  misery. 

"Thus,"  says  Carlyle,  "like  some  wild-flam- 
ing, wild-thundering  train  of  Heaven's  artil- 
lery, does  this  mysterious  MANKIND  thunder 
and  flame  in  long-drawn,  quick-succeeding 
grandeur  through  the  unknown  deep.  Thus 
like  a  God-created,  fire-breathing  spirit-host, 
we  emerge  from  the  inane,  haste  stormfully 
across  the  astonished  earth,  then  plunge  again 
into  the  inane."  A  rushing  forth  from  noth- 
ing back  into  nothing,  — this  is  all.  The  edu- 
cator's business  is  to  prepare  man  to  make  this 
stormful  haste  across  the  astonished  earth  in  a 
becoming  manner. 

Pedagogy  cannot  aspire  to  fit  him  for  an 
existence  in  the  inane.  For  this  life  must 
man  be  educated ;  of  another,  if  other  there  is, 
neither  knowledge  nor  faith  can  give  us  true 
account.  The  hero  of  Carlyle's  profoundest 
and  most  eloquent  work,  walks  wearisomely 
through  this  world,  having  lost  all  tidings  of 
another  and  higher.  Fixed,  starless,  tartarean 
darkness  envelops  his  soul.  "The  everlast- 
ing NO  had  said:  'Behold,  thou  art  fatherless, 
outcast,  and  the  universe  is  mine.'5  The 
hero  made  answer:  "I  am  not  thine,  but  free, 
and  forever  hate  thee."  This  wild  protest 
against  despair  leads  him  to  the  Centre  of 


148  THINGS  OF   THE  MIND. 

Indifference,  from  which  in  grim  mockery  he 
hurls  his  objurgations:  "God,"  he  says,  "must 
needs  laugh  outright,  could  such  a  thing  be, 
to  see  his  wondrous  manikins  here  below." 
He  is  in  the  wilderness;  it  is  the  wide  world 
in  an  atheistic  century. 

Lying  here  in  this  Centre  of  Indifference 
he  awakes  to  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth. 
From  a  high  table-land  he  gazes  upon  the 
world  and  contemplates  its  myriadfold  and 
ever-changing  forms  of  beauty  and  life.  "  How 
thou  fermentest,"  he  exclaims,  "and  elabo- 
ratest  in  thy  great  fermenting  vat  and  labor- 
atory of  an  atmosphere,  of  a  world!  Oh, 
nature!  or,  what  is  nature?  Ha!  Why  do  I 
not  name  thee  God?  Art  not  thou  the  'living 
garment  of  God  ?  '  Oh,  Heavens,  is  it,  in 
very  deed,  He,  then,  that  ever  speaks  through 
thee;  that  lives  and  loves  in  thee,  that  lives 
and  loves  in  me  ? " 

And  to  this  pantheism  the  spirit  of  mysti- 
cism comes  to  seek  a  new  worship.  The 
Mythus  of  Christianity  is  obsolete.  "The 
temple  thereof,  founded  some  eighteen  cen- 
turies ago,  now  lies  in  ruins,  overgrown  with 
jungle,  the  habitation  of  doleful  creatures." 
A  worship  and  an  ideal  nevertheless  must  be 
found.  Speculation  is  by  nature  endless,  form- 
less, a  vortex  amid  vortices.  Thought  fatally 


THEORIES   OF  LIFE  AND  EDUCATION.     149 

leads  to  the  abyss  in  which  all  things  whirl  in 
inextricable  confusion,  and  in  which  nothing 
can  be  seen  or  known  with  certainty;  for  in 
the  lowest  deep  a  lower  depth  still  opening 
swallows  the  thinker  and  his  thought,  beyond 
plummet's  sounding,  yea,  beyond  the  reach  of 
fantasy.  The  end  of  life,  therefore,  is  not  to 
think,  but  to  act.  Not  that  we  might  in  morbid 
self-introspection  eat  our  own  hearts;  project- 
ing upon  the  world  we  rail  at  our  diseased 
imaginations,  have  we  emerged  from  the  inane. 
Goethe  is  right.  His  immortal  precept  opens 
a  new  era  and  founds  a  new  religion.  Study, 
he  says,  how  to  live;  that  is,  study  how  to 
make  the  most  of  life.  "  Fool !  the  ideal  is  in 
thyself,  the  impediment  too  is  in  thyself;  thy 
condition  is  but  the  stuff  thou  art  to  shape 
that  same  ideal  out  of;  what  matters  whether 
such  stuff  be  of  this  sort  or  that,  so  the  form 
thou  give  it  be  heroic,  be  poetic?  O  thou 
that  pinest  in  the  imprisonment  of  the  actual, 
and  criest  bitterly  to  the  gods  for  a  kingdom 
wherein  to  rule  and  create,  know  this  of  a 
truth.  The  thing  thou  seekest  is  already  with 
thee,  'here  or  nowhere,'  couldst  thou  only 
see."  Here  or  nowhere,  study  how  to  make 
the  most  of  life.  This  is  the  path  that  leads 
upward  from  tartarean  darkness  and  endless 
chaos  to  the  light  and  serenity  of  cosmic  har- 


150  THINGS  OF  THE  MIND. 

mony.  Carlyle,  most  assuredly,  is  no  mate- 
rialist, he  is  no  utilitarian;  and  just  as  little  is 
he  a  sensualist  or  a  scientific  atheist.  Against 
all  these  things  his  soul  cries  out  in  fiery  and 
convulsive  indignation.  What  an  imperish- 
able odor  is  there  not  in  those  "pig  proposi- 
tions "  in  which  he  gives  us  the  materialist 
and  utilitarian  theory  of  the  world?  The 
universe  is  an  immeasurable  swine's  trough. 
Moral  evil  is  unattainability  of  pig's  wash. 
Paradise,  called  also  state  of  innocence,  age 
of  gold,  was  unlimited  attainability  of  pig's 
wash.  It  is  the  mission  of  universal  pighood, 
and  the  duty  of  all  pigs,  at  all  times,  to  dimin- 
ish the  quantity  of  unattainable,  and  increase 
that  of  attainable.  All  knowledge  and  device 
and  effort  ought  to  be  directed  thither,  and 
thither  only.  Pig  poetry  ought  to  consist  of 
universal  recognition  of  the  excellence  of  pig's 
wash  and  ground  barley,  and  the  felicity  of 
pigs  whose  trough  is  in  order,  and  who  have 
had  enough.  Humph!  Who  made  the  pig? 
Unknown;  perhaps  the  pork  butcher. 

The  cold  and  pitiless  irony  of  Swift  is  here 
seething  hot,  like  molten  lava. 

Scientific  atheism,  too,  with  its  superficial 
and  self-conceited  rationalism,  fills  him  with 
contempt,  in  which  there  is  also  an  element  of 
fiery  anger.  "  Thou  wilt  have  no  mystery  and 


THEORIES  OF  LIFE  AND  EDUCATION.     151 

mysticism,  he  exclaims;  wilt  walk  through 
thy  world  by  the  sunshine  of  what  thou  callest 
truth,  or  even  by  the  hand-lamp  of  what  I  call 
attorney-logic,  and  'explain  '  all,  'account '  for 
all,  or  believe  nothing  of  it.  Nay,  thou  wilt 
attempt  laughter;  whoso  recognizes  the  un- 
fathomable, all-pervading  domain  of  mystery, 
which  is  everywhere,  under  our  feet  and 
among  our  hands ;  to  whom  the  universe  is  an 
oracle  and  temple,  as  well  as  a  kitchen  and 
cattle-stall, — he  shall  be  a  delirious  mystic; 
to  him,  thou,  with  sniffing  charity,  wilt  pro- 
trusively  proffer  thy  hand-lamp,  and  shriek  as 
one  injured  when  he  kicks  his  foot  through 
it.'1  The  universe  is  awful,  mysterious.  "Thy 
daily  life  is  girt  with  wonder,  and  based  on 
wonder;  thy  very  blankets  and  breeches  are 
miracles."  The  unspeakable  divine  signifi- 
cance lies  in  all  things.  "Atheistic  science 
babbles  poorly  of  it,  with  scientific  nomencla- 
tures, experiments,  and  what  not,  as  if  it  were 
a  poor  dead  thing  to  be  bottled  up  in  Leyden 
jars  and  sold  over  counters.  But  the  natural 
sense  of  man,  in  all  times,  if  he  will  honestly 
apply  his  sense,  knows  it  to  be  a  living  thing, 
—  ah,  an  unspeakable,  Godlike  thing,  towards 
which  the  best  attitude  for  us  after  never  so 
much  science,  is  awe,  devout  prostration  and 
humility  of  soul;  worship,  if  not  in  words, 


152  THINGS  OF  THE  MIND. 

then  in  silence."  This  indignant  rebuke  to 
atheism  proceeds  from  a  fervent  soul.  Impiety 
is  offensive  to  Carlyle,  to  whom  whatever  is, 
is  divine,  is  God.  All  religions  he  holds  are 
good,  if  only  men  are  sincere.  The  only 
idolatry  is  that  from  which  the  sentiment  has 
departed.  To  worship  sticks  and  stones  with 
all  one's  heart  and  in  downright  honesty,  is 
better  than  all  the  conventional  pieties  of  our 
modern  world.  The  value  of  religion  is  purely 
subjective;  it  is  in  the  sentiment.  The  object 
is  of  small  moment,  for  all  possible  symbols 
are  but  representations  of  the  mysterious  un- 
known which  lies  beneath  appearance.  But 
for  Carlyle,  as  for  all  who  deny  the  existence 
of  a  personal  God,  man  is  the  highest;  and 
his  religion  is  hero-worship.  His  view  is 
fixed  upon  this  life  alone;  he  knows  no  other. 
Here  or  nowhere.  Man  rushes  forth  from 
nothing  back  into  nothing.  To  educate  him 
for  a  future  life,  would  be  as  absurd  as  to  edu- 
cate him  for  a  past  life.  In  fact,  as  he  had 
no  past  life,  so  will  he  have  no  future  life. 
Study,  therefore,  to  make  the  most  of  this; 
and  to  teach  this  highest  and  only  wisdom, 
should  be  the  educator's  aim  and  purpose. 
Carlyle,  however,  has  no  faith  in  any  mechan- 
ism or  system  of  education.  A  gerund-grind- 
ing pedagogue  is  to  him  no  better  than  the 


THEORIES  OF  LIFE  AND  EDUCATION.     153 

wood  and  leather  man  whom  the  Nurembergers 
were  to  build,  and  "  who  should  reason  as  well 
as  most  country  parsons."  The  curse  of  the 
age  is  its  belief  in  mechanism.  The  soul  of 
man,  the  soul  of  society,  the  soul  of  religion, 
is  come  to  be  considered  the  product  of  mechan- 
ical action.  If  the  wheels,  cogs,  valves,  pistons, 
and  checks  are  in  order,  all  is  well.  Man's 
happiness  and  worth  are  no  longer  believed  to 
be  within  himself;  his  ideal  is  not  a  spiritual 
and  divine  something,  but  an  outward  condi- 
tion, in  which  there  will  be  well-oiled  and 
smoothly  working  machines  for  manufacturing 
everything;  from  patent  creeds  and  codes  to 
patent  breeches.  This  is  atheism,  this  is  in- 
finite evil,  infinite  despair,  and  no-religion. 
"We  have  forgotten  God,"  he  says,  "in  the 
most  modern  dialect  and  very  pith  of  the  matter, 
we  have  taken  up  the  fact  of  this  universe  as  it 
is  not.  We  have  quietly  closed  our  eyes  to  the 
eternal  substance  of  things,  and  opened  them 
only  to  the  shows  and  shams  of  things.  We 
quietly  believe  the  universe  to  be  intrinsically 
a  great  unintelligible  PERHAPS;  extrinsically 
clear  enough  it  is  a  great,  most  extensive 
cattlefold  and  workhouse,  with  most  extensive 
kitchen  ranges,  dining  tables,  — whereat  he  is 
wise  who  can  find  a  place!  All  the  truth  of 
this  universe  is  uncertain ;  only  the  profit  and 


154  THINGS  OF   THE   MIND. 

loss  of  it,  the  pudding  and  praise  of  it,  are 
and  remain  very  visible  to  the  practical  man. 
There  is  no  God  any  longer  for  us!  God's 
laws  are  become  a  greatest  happiness  prin- 
ciple, a  parliamentary  expediency;  the  heavens 
overarch  us  only  as  an  astronomical  time- 
keeper. .  .  .  This  is  verily  the  plague-spot  cen- 
tre of  the  universal  social  gangrene,  threatening 
all  modern  things  with  frightful  death.  To  him 
that  will  consider  it,  here  is  the  stem,  with  its 
roots  and  tap-root,  with  its  world-wide  upas- 
boughs  and  accursed  poison  exudations,  under 
which  the  world  lies  writhing  in  atrophy  and 
agony.  You  touch  the  fatal  centre  of  all  our 
disease,  of  our  frightful  nosology  of  diseases, 
when  you  lay  your  hand  on  this."  "There  is 
no  religion;  there  is  no  God;  man  has  lost  his 
soul,  and  vainly  seeks  antiseptic  salt."  The 
blight  of  this  faith  in  what  is  dead,  godless, 
and  mechanic,  corrupts  our  modern  education, 
which  regards  only  what  is  practical  and  econ- 
omic, and  wholly  abandons  to  moral  dry-rot 
man's  spiritual  and  religious  nature.  The 
science  of  the  age  is  physical,  chemical,  physi- 
ological. Even  mathematics  is  valued  only 
for  its  mechanic  use,  in  building  bridges, 
constructing  forts,  and  indicating  the  proper 
angle  for  killing  men  at  given  distances.  The 
inventor  of  the  spinning-jenny  and  sewing- 


THEORIES   OF  LIFE  AND  EDUCATION.     155 

machine  has  his  reward.  The  philosopher  is 
without  honor.  Thought  is  secreted  by  the 
brain;  and  poetry  and  religion  are  "a  product 
of  the  smaller  intestines."  What  other  than 
a  mechanical  education  is  possible  to  men  who 
breathe  this  mephitic,  soul-stifling  air?  The 
mind  is  littered,  as  though  it  grew  like  a 
vegetable,  with  etymological  and  other  com- 
post ;  it  is  crammed  with  dead  vocables ;  it  is 
taught  that  its  chief  use  is  to  calculate  profit 
and  loss;  and  when  it  is  burnt  out  to  a  gram- 
matical and  arithmetical  cinder,  its  education 
is  complete. 

"  Alas,  so  is  it  everywhere,  so  will  it  ever 
be;  till  the  hodman  is  discharged  or  reduced 
to  hod-bearing  and  an  architect  is  hired,  and 
on  all  hands  fitly  encouraged;  till  communities 
and  individuals  discover,  not  without  surprise, 
that  fashioning  the  souls  of  a  generation  by 
knowledge,  can  rank  on  a  level  with  blowing 
their  bodies  to  pieces  by  gunpowder;  that  with 
generals  and  field-marshals,  for  killing,  there 
should  be  world-honored  dignitaries,  and  were 
it  possible,  true  God-ordained  priests  for 
teaching." 

No  hidebound  pedant  can  educate.  Of  man, 
such  a  one  knows  only  that  he  has  a  faculty 
called  memory,  and  that  it  can  be  acted  on 
through  the  muscular  integument  by  birchen 


156  THINGS   OF   THE   MIND. 

rods.  To  educate  we  must  touch  the  mysteri- 
ous springs  of  love,  fear,  and  wonder,  of  enthu- 
siasm, poetry,  religion.  These  are  the  inward 
and  vital  powers  of  man;  who  cannot  be  roused 
into  deep,  all-pervading  effort  by  any  comput- 
able prospect  of  profit  and  loss,  for  any  definite 
finite  object,  but  only  for  what  is  invisible  and 
infinite.  "When  we  can  drain  the  ocean  into 
our  mill-ponds,  and  bottle  up  the  force  of 
gravity,  to  be  sold  by  retail  in  our  gas-jars, 
then  we  may  hope  to  comprehend  the  infini- 
tudes of  man's  soul  under  formulas  of  profit 
and  loss;  and  rule  over  this  too,  as  over  a 
patent  engine,  by  checks  and  valves  and 
balances."; 

One  of  Carlyle's  great  merits  is  the  vivid- 
ness and  force  with  which  he  brings  out  man's 
spiritual  nature;  his  craving  for  the  infinite; 
his  inborn  and  necessary  dissatisfaction  with 
whatever  is  not  eternal  and  all-perfect.  Out 
of  the  meanness  and  littleness  and  emptiness 
of  the  world  which  surrounds  him,  he  takes 
refuge  in  the  eternities,  the  immensities,  the 
veracities.  It  is  at  least  singular  that  the 
most  gifted  and  earnest  writers  of  the  England 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  in  spite  of  their  in- 
numerable differences  in  thought  and  temper, 
should  agree  in  their  estimate  of  English  life. 
That  it  is  low  and  vulgar,  selfish  and  insincere, 


THEORIES  OF  LIFE  AND  EDUCATION.     157 

without  high  ideals  or  generous  impulses  or 
noble  aspirations,  is  the  common  testimony  of 
Carlyle  and  John  Stuart  Mill,  of  Dickens  and 
Thackeray,  of  Byron  and  Tennyson,  of  Ruskin 
and  Matthew  Arnold.  Macaulay,  indeed,  is 
inclined  to  optimistic  views  in  whatever  con- 
cerns England,  but  he  is  purely  literary;  lives 
on  the  surface,  which  he  rounds  off  with  a 
polished  and  ornate  phrase,  and  leaves  un- 
touched the  deep  central  heart  of  things. 

What  gloomy  energy  is  there  not  in  the  fol- 
lowing words  of  Carlyle !  — 

"  Like  the  valley  of  Jehoshaphat  it  lies  round 
us,  one  nightmare  wilderness,  and  wreck  of 
dead  men's  bones,  this  false  modern  world; 
and  no  rapt  Ezekiel  imaged  to  himself  things 
sadder,  more  horrible  and  terrible,  than  the 
eyes  of  men,  if  they  are  awake,  may  now 
deliberately  see." 

And  in  these  other  words,  what  depth  of 
truth  is  there  not  discernible!  — 

"  Faith  strengthens  us,  enlightens  us,  for  all 
endeavors  and  endurances ;  with  faith  we  can 
do  all,  and  dare  all,  and  life  itself  has  a  thou- 
sand times  been  joyfully  given  away.  But 
the  sum  of  man's  misery  is  even  this,  that  he 
feel  himself  crushed  under  the  Juggernaut 
wheels,  and  know  that  Juggernaut  is  no 
divinity,  but  a  dead  mechanical  idol." 


158  THINGS  OF  THE  MIND. 

And  again,  the  angry  voice  breaks  forth  in 
sullen,  almost  despairing  protest :  — 

"Not  Godhead,  but  an  iron,  ignoble  circle 
of  necessity  embraces  all  things;  binds  the 
youth  of  these  times  into  a  sluggish  thrall,  or 
else  exasperates  him  into  a  rebel.  Heroic 
action  is  paralyzed ;  for  what  worth  now 
remains  unquestionable  with  him?  At  the 
fervid  period,  when  his  whole  nature  cries 
aloud  for  action,  there  is  nothing  sacred  under 
whose  banner  he  can  act;  the  course  and  kind 
and  conditions  of  free  action  are  all  but  indis- 
coverable.  Doubt  storms  in  on  him  through 
every  avenue;  inquiries  of  the  deepest,  pain- 
fullest  sort  must  be  engaged  with ;  and  the 
invincible  energy  of  young  years  wastes  itself 
in  sceptical,  suicidal  cavillings,  in  passionate 
questionings  of  destiny,  whence  no  answer 
will  be  returned." 

The  weakness,  the  shallowness,  the  misery, 
and  selfishness  which  are  the  results  of  atheism 
and  no-religion,  are  most  clearly  discerned 
and  forcibly  expressed  by  Carlyle.  He  sees 
that  faith  in  something  higher  than  himself  is 
the  one  thing  needful  for  man ;  that  to  live 
for  vulgar  objects  and  selfish  ends  is  suicidal, 
is  the  denial  and  destruction  of  all  that  makes 
life  worth  having;  and  when  men  come  with 
their  schemes  for  making  this  earth  a  luxurious 


THEORIES  OF  LIFE  AND  EDUCATION.     159 

lubberland,  where  the  brooks  shall  run  wine, 
and  the  trees  bend  with  ready-baked  viands, 
and  who  bring  their  hand-lamp  wherewith  to 
dispel  all  darkness,  he,  without  more  ado, 
kicks  his  foot  through  it,  and  so  leaves  them 
and  their  paper  contrivances.  He  has  the  gift 
of  noble  indignation.  His  very  soul  loathes 
all  sham ;  he  is  the  sworn  enemy  of  cant,  and 
holds  sincerity  to  be  the  mother  virtue.  The 
sincere  man  is  the  divine  man,  the  hero,  the 
highest  form  which  consciousness  can  assume. 
He  comes  to  us  at  first  hand,  with  tidings 
from  the  infinite  unknown.  The  words  he 
speaks  are  no  other  man's  words;  he  comes 
from  the  inner  fact  of  things,  the  heart  of  the 
world,  the  primal  reality.  That  the  hero  have 
what  men  call  faults  is  of  small  moment. 
We  make  too  much  of  faults,  says  Carlyle. 
He  is  all  fault  who  has  no  fault.  Hence 
Mahomet,  Luther,  Cromwell,  Rousseau,  Burns, 
and  Napoleon,  are  not  simply  men  of  genius 
and  power,  but  they  are  messengers  from 
heaven,  true  prophets,  to  be  received  and 
heard  with  all  reverence  and  obedience;  nay, 
to  be  worshipped  in  all  sincerity.  "And  in 
this  so  despicable  age  of  ours,  — be  the  boun- 
teous heavens  ever  thanked  for  it,  — two  heroes 
have  nevertheless  been  found.  Bonaparte 
walked  through  the  war-convulsed  world  like 


160  THINGS  OF  THE  MIND. 

an  all-devouring  earthquake,  heaving,  thunder- 
ing, hurling  kingdom  over  kingdom.  Goethe 
was  as  the  mild-shining,  inaudible  light,  which, 
notwithstanding,  can  again  make  that  chaos 
into  a  creation."  And  now  the  bounteous 
heavens  have  to  this  so  despicable  age  vouch- 
safed a  third  hero,  who  is  no  other  than  Prince 
Bismarck;  and,  to  crown  the  work  of  mercy, 
they  have  inspired  Mr.  Froude  to  reveal  to  his 
generation  the  heroic  character  and  sublime 
worth  of  that  much-abused  and  misunderstood 
demigod,  Henry  VIII.  And  so  we  have  veri- 
fied Carlyle's  doctrine  that  the  age  of  miracles 
is  not  past,  but  even  now  is. 

Upon  those  who,  in  this  modern  world,  are 
called  religious,  Carlyle  pours,  in  boundless 
contempt,  the  full  vials  of  his  scorn  and  wrath. 
They  are  unveracities,  chimeras,  and  sem- 
blances. Even  the  best  of  them  keep  truck- 
ing and  trimming  between  worn-out  symbols 
and  hypocrisy.  .  .  .  "  Birds  of  darkness  are 
on  the  wing,  spectres  uproar,  the  dead  walk, 
the  living  dream.*'  The  church-clothes,  which 
once  held  and  revealed  to  men's  eyes  the  holy 
of  holies,  nothing  else  than  the  divine  idea  of 
the  world,  have  now  gone  sorrowfully  out  at 
elbows.  "  Nay,  far  worse,  many  of  them  have 
become  mere  hollow  shapes  or  masks,  under 
which  no  living  figure  or  spirit  any  longer 


THEORIES  OF  LIFE  AND  EDUCATION.     l6l 

dwells ;  but  only  spiders  and  unclean  beetles, 
in  horrid  accumulation,  drive  their  trade;  and 
the  mask  still  glares  on  you.  with  its  glass 
eyes,  in  ghastly  affectation  of  life."  The  reli- 
gion of  the  Middle  Ages  is  something  quite 
different,  nay,  wholly  opposite,  a  living  and 
divine  reality.  "  In  those  dark  ages  intellect 
could  invent  glass,  which  now  she  has  enough 
ado  to  grind  into  spectacles.  Intellect  built 
not  only  churches,  but  a  church,  the  church, 
based  on  this  firm  earth,  yet  reaching  and 
leading  up  as  high  as  heaven."  This  church 
was  planted  on  the  basis  of  fact,  and  built 
according  to  the  laws  of  statics;  and  its  heroes 
and  prophets  are  troubled  by  no  doubt,  or 
any  sort  of  doubt.  Their  "religion  is  not  a 
diseased  self-introspection,  an  agonizing  in- 
quiry; their  duties  are  clear  to  them;  the  way 
of  supreme  good  plain,  indisputable,  and  they 
are  travelling  on  it.  Religion  lies  over  them 
like  an  all-embracing  heavenly  canopy,  like  an 
atmosphere  and  life  element,  which  is  not 
spoken  of,  which,  in  all  things,  is  presupposed 
without  speech.  Is  not  serene  or  complete 
religion  the  highest  aspect  of  human  nature, 
as  serene  cant  or  complete  no-religion  is  the 
lowest  and  miserablest? " 

"Our  religion,"  he  says,  — speaking  of  what 
he  calls  "twelfth-century  Catholicism,"  —  "is 


1 62  THINGS  OF   THE  MIND. 

not  yet  a  horrible,  restless  doubt,  still  less 
a  far  horribler  composed  cant;  but  a  great 
heaven-high  unquestionability,  encompassing, 
interpenetrating  the  whole  of  life." 

In  this  old  Church,  planted  on  the  basis  of 
fact,  built  according  to  the  laws  of  statics, 
heroes  were  not  wanting.  Here,  for  instance, 
is  Abbot  Samson:  "The  great  antique  heart, 
how  like  a  child's  in  its  simplicity,  like  a 
man's  in  its  earnest  solemnity  and  depth! 
Heaven  lies  over  him  wheresoever  he  goes  or 
stands  on  the  earth;  making  all  the  earth  a 
mystic  temple  to  him,  the  earth's  business  all 
a  kind  of  worship.  Heaven's  splendor  over 
his  head,  hell's  darkness  under  his  feet.  It 
was  not  a  dilettanteism  this  of  Abbot  Samson. 
It  was  a  reality,  and  it  is  one.  .  .  .  This  is 
Abbot  Samson's  Catholicism  of  the  twelfth 
century.  Alas!  compared  with  any  of  the 
isms  current  in  these  poor  days,  what  a 
thing!  " 

No  one  could  have  written  a  nobler  history 
of  Gregory  VII.  and  his  creative  work  than 
Carlyle ;  nor  could  he  have  found  a  grander 
hero;  but  his  temper,  like  Milton's,  led  him 
rather  to  the  great  destroyers  and  mighty 
rebels,  who  walk  through  the  convulsed  world, 
upheaving,  casting  down,  blowing  to  frag- 
ments men  and  their  works. 


THEORIES  OF  LIFE  AND  EDUCATION.     163 

In  his  doctrine  of  hero-worship  there  are 
doubtless  elements  of  truth.  The  highest  man 
is  most  like  to  God  of  anything  that  is  visible 
in  this  earth.  God  himself  has  walked  the 
earth  clothed  on  with  human  nature,  and  of 
his  divine  gifts  men  are  the  ministers.  The 
soul  of  man  is  more  than  any  or  all  machinery. 
For  man's  sake  was  the  Sabbath  instituted, 
and  for  him  all  good  and  right  institutions 
exist;  not  he  for  them.  He  is  more  than  they. 
True  religion  must  not  only  inspire  reverence 
for  man,  but  must  produce  heroic  types  of 
men,  saints  of  God,  who  in  strong  arid  painful 
wrestlings  with  themselves  and  the  spirits  of 
darkness,  struggle  upwards  to  peace  and  light, 
leaving  behind  them  a  pathway,  red  with 
blood,  but  luminous;  so  that  the  multitudes 
who  grope  in  the  gloom  of  lower  thoughts  and 
loves,  may  not  be  left  without  some  living  tes- 
timony and  effulgence  of  the  higher  world,  for 
which  all  alike  have  been  created.  Even  God's 
sacraments  fall  into  disuse  unless  they  are 
held  in  the  hands  of  true,  believing  men. 
Reverence  for  those  who  are  above  us  is  not 
only  a  Christian  virtue,  but  one  which  in  this 
day  has  special  need  of  being  preached.  And 
admiration,  too,  is  wholesome  and  elevating. 
I  admire  the  gift  even  where  I  condemn  its 
use.  The  shallow  spirit,  which  sees  no  great- 


1 64  THINGS  OF  THE  MIND. 

ness  in  man,  and  no  great  men,  is  irreligious. 
But  Carlyle  exaggerates  the  value  and  influ- 
ence of  hero-worship,  and  his  ideal  is  not  only 
false  but  immoral.  "All  religion/'  he  says, 
"  issues'  in  due  practical  hero-worship.  .  .  . 
Society  is  founded  on  hero-worship.  ...  I 
seem  to  see  in  this  indestructibility  of  hero- 
worship  the  everlasting  adamant,  lower  than 
which  the  confused  wreck  of  revolutionary 
things  cannot  fall."  Of  all  this,  what  Carlyle 
would  call  attorney  logic,  and  what  here  may 
fitly  enough  be  called  common  sense,  cannot 
approve.  Nevertheless,  even  the  logic-chopper 
must  admit  that  it  is  fairly  deducible  from  the 
premises.  If  man  springs  forth  from  the  un- 
conscious, as  Carlyle  holds,  he  can  worship 
only  himself;  for  the  highest  consciousness 
must  necessarily  think  itself  the  absolute 
highest.  In  fact  this  whole  system  of  hero- 
worship  is  but  a  development  of  Hegel's  law 
of  history,  which  is  pantheistic.  The  ideal 
man,  in  this  system,  is  in  no  true  sense  ideal. 
The  sincere  man  is  not  the  highest,  best, 
wisest  man ;  for  fanaticism  may  be  sincere  as 
well  as  faith,  and  tyranny  as  well  as  justice. 
Moreover,  sincerity,  in  Carlyle's  thought,  is 
synonymous  with  naturalness,  and  it  may  be 
urged  with  strong  reason  that  goodness  and 
virtue  are  not  natural  to  man.  Hence,  Carlyle 


THEORIES  OF  LIFE   AND  EDUCATION.     165 

loses  more  and  more  all  ground  of  difference 
between  the  natural  and  the  right;  his  ideal 
grows  less  and  less  spiritual,  until  finally  he 
fails  to  perceive  any  higher  test  of  worth  than 
sheer  strength.  Whatever  can  get  upon  its 
feet  and  stand  there  in  spite  of  all  enemies,  is 
thereby  self-consecrated,  in  his  eyes,  as  a  part 
of  the  eternal  laws.  The  force  which  on  its 
way  to  great  achievements  refuses  to  be  con- 
trolled, the  genius  which  acknowledges  no  law 
but  itself,  are  not  only  wonderful  but  sacred 
and  divine.  Mahomet  may  be  lustful,  Crom- 
well cruel,  Luther  coarse  and  sensual,  Burns 
a  drunkard,  Rousseau  utterly  abject ;  but  to 
remark  this  is  the  most  unmistakable  proof 
that  one  is  a  blockhead.  Let  us  bear  in  mind 
that  Carlyle  holds  nature  to  be  divine  and  all 
natural  forces  to  be  sacred,  and  we  shall  easily 
get  at  his  point  of  view.  These  men  are 
natural,  and  it  is  therefore  simply  absurd  to 
suppose  that  they  can  be  immoral.  With  what 
devout  reverence  and  admiration  does  he  not 
follow  Mirabeau  in  his  lust-defiled  and  madly 
reckless  career?  But  the  Count  is  natural,  a 
swallower  of  formulas,  a  contemner  of  custom ; 
and  is  not  this  divine,  is  it  not  the  highest? 
Carlyle  has  some  most  eloquent  passages  on 
the  quite  infinite  nature  of  duty,  and  Teufels- 
drockh,  even  in  the  sorrowfulest  wretchedness 


1 66  THINGS  OF  THE  MIND. 

of  unbelief,  has  still  this  light  to  convince  him 
that  the  world  is  God's  and  not  the  devil's. 
But  when  we  try  to  get  at  the  exact  import 
of  duty,  we  cannot  perceive  that  in  his  mind 
it  means  more  than  sincerity,  naturalness.  To 
this  infinite  nature  of  duty  Mahomet,  Crom- 
well, Mirabeau,  and  Frederick  the  Great  were 
true;  all  men,  in  fact,  it  would  seem,  are  true; 
for  "  man  cannot  but  obey  whatever  he  ought 
to  obey." 

In  "  Sartor  Resartus "  there  is  no  more 
striking  passage  than  the  following:  " There 
is  in  man  a  higher  than  love  of  happiness;  he 
can  do  without  happiness,  and  instead  thereof 
find  blessedness !  .  .  .  Love  not  pleasure,  love 
God.  This  is  the  everlasting  Yea,  wherein 
all  contradiction  is  solved;  wherein  whoso 
walks  and  works,  it  is  well  with  him." 

Love  God,  says  Carlyle,  but  does  he  mean 
God?  In  the  multitudinous  writings  which 
have  poured  from  his  pen  since  that  precept  was 
recorded,  the  command  is  not  found,  I  think,  a 
second  time.  Much  and  often  has  he  spoken  of 
the  eternities,  the  immensities,  the  veracities, 
the  silences,  in  whose  presence  we  should  stand 
in  awe  and  wonder,  with  devout  prostration  of 
soul.  Much  and  often  too  has  he  spoken  of 
the  unconscious,  the  unknown,  the  unnam- 
able,  the  infinite  nescience,  the  darkness,  and 


THEORIES   OF  LIFE   AND  EDUCATION.     167 

mystery  that  shrouds  man's  whole  life,  lies 
everywhere,  under  his  feet  and  among  his 
hands.  God's  name,  too,  he  has  often  since 
written ;  but  a  second  time,  as  it  is  believed, 
he  has  not  called  upon  men  to  love  God. 
Whence  this  ominous  silence?  Love,  in  the 
human  and  only  sense  in  which  it  has  a  mean- 
ing for  us,  is  of  persons  and  not  of  things.  If 
God  is  the  eternities,  the  immensities,  the 
veracities,  the  unconscious,  it  would  be  most 
preposterous  and  absurd  to  ask  us  to  love  him. 
Wonder  and  prostration,  self-annihilation,  — 
all  these,  if  you  will,  command,  but  not  love, 
which  cannot  live  except  in  the  light  of  one 
who  loves  and  knows.  Do  the  eternities  love 
me?  Do  the  immensities  know  me?  Does 
the  unconscious  care  for  me?  I  know  the  diffi- 
culties, I  see  the  obscurities  when  we  attempt 
to  think  of  God  as  a  person.  The  idea  of  God 
can  be  expressed  in  human  language  analogi- 
cally only;  yet  is  it  undeniably  and  forever 
true  that  the  highest  being  who  knows  and 
loves  is  the  absolute  highest.  Eternities  and 
immensities  belong  to  Him,  not  He  to  them. 
Whatever  allowance  we  may  be  disposed  to 
make  in  consideration  of  the  fact  that  Carlyle 
is  a  rhapsodist  and  a  seer,  it  is  impossible  not 
to  recognize  that  in  his  thinking  God  is  not  a 
person,  and  is  not  therefore  the  God  whom 


1 68  THINGS  OF  THE  MIND. 

St.  John  declared  to  be  Love.  Carlyle  has  a 
disciple  who  is  a  most  lucid  and  intelligible 
writer,  whose  thought  is  as  transparent  as  the 
expression  he  gives  it  is  precise;  and  he  has 
translated  his  master's  idea  of  God  into  the 
plainest  and  simplest  language.  "  God/'  says 
Matthew  Arnold,  "is  the  eternal  power,  not 
ourselves,  which  makes  for  righteousness. " 
.  .  .  "The  stream  of  tendency  by  which  all 
things  fulfil  the  law  of  their  being."  And 
that  this  "eternal  power/'  this  "stream  of 
tendency,"  is  not  a  person  who  thinks  and 
loves,  he  plainly  tells  us.  The  God  of  Chris- 
tianity and  of  Judaism  is,  he  says,  only  a  mag- 
nified and  non-natural  man. 

Here  we  have  no  mystic  phrase,  no  uncertain 
light,  no  poetic  symbolism;  but  the  clear 
revelation  of  the  eternities  and  the  immen- 
sities. The  word  "  God  "  is  still  employed  be- 
cause no  other  has  such  poetic  and  mysterious 
power  over  the  human  mind;  and  this  is  but 
an  example  of  a  general  process  in  which  the 
meaning  of  words  is  undergoing  a  complete 
transformation.  Carlyle' s  God  then  does  not 
love.  He  is  "a  force  and  thousandfold  com- 
plexity of  forces;  a  force  which  is  not  we. 
That  is  all,  it  is  not  we;  it  is  altogether 
different  from  us.  Force,  force,  everywhere 
force."  Strength  is  the  divine  attribute;  the 


THEORIES  OF  LIFE  AND  EDUCATION.     169 

strong  are  God's  children;  and  to  be  weak  is 
not  only  miserable,  but  immoral.  This  idea 
fills  him  with  fierce  thoughts  and  dark  imagin- 
ings. The  crashing  of  thrones,  and  the  falling 
of  altars,  and  the  lurid  light  of  burning  cities, 
and  the  horrid  din  of  murderous  battle  inspire 
him  with  wild  delight.  Force  is  building 
temples  for  its  worship  upon  the  wreck  and 
ruin  of  all  things.  He  loses,  more  and  more, 
sympathy  and  tenderness,  until  he  is  wholly 
possessed  by  a  sarcastic  and  gloomy  indigna- 
tion. The  earth  becomes  a  charnel-house,  the 
dead  uproar;  the  light  of  heaven  dies  out. 
They  only  are  blessed  who  find  rest  in  the 
bosom  of  the  unconscious.  The  most  fanatical 
hater  of  dogmas  and  creeds,  he  is  become  the 
most  intolerant  of  thinkers.  What  he  esteems 
a  sham  and  chimera  is  so  for  the  eternal  laws. 
A  symbol  worn  out  for  him  is  henceforth  use- 
less forever  for  all  men.  In  such  a  temper  con- 
tradictions must  abound.  He  makes  silence 
a  god,  and  is  himself  a  man  of  infinite  words. 
The  French  Revolution  fills  him  with  a  terri- 
ble glee,  and  yet  he  curses  democracy.  The 
end  of  life,  he  declares,  with  Goethe,  to  be, 
action  and  not  thought;  and  yet  he  keeps 
thinking  and  does  not  otherwise  act.  To 
reform  a  world,  he  well  says,  no  wise  man  will 
undertake;  and  yet  he  chafes  and  is  angry 


I/O  THINGS   OF  THE   MIND. 

because  the  world  has  not  been  reformed  by 
his  preaching.  If  God  is  only  the  "stream  of 
tendency,"  Renan  is  doubtless  a  true  philoso- 
pher. "The  thinker,"  he  says,  "believes  that 
he  has  little  right  to  direct  the  affairs  of  his 
planet;  and,  contented  with  the  lot  which  has 
fallen  to  him,  he  accepts  his  impotence  with- 
out regret.  A  spectator  in  the  universe,  he 
knows  that  the  world  belongs  to  him  only  as  a 
subject  of  study;  and  though  he  were  able  to 
reform  it,  he  would  perhaps  find  it  so  curious 
as  it  is,  that  he  would  lack  the  courage  to 
undertake  the  task." 

Carlyle  is  not  an  original  thinker.  His 
theories  are  English  interpretations  of  German 
thought ;  but  interpretations  which  only  a  man 
of  genius  could  have  made.  His  influence 
and  significance  will  be  lightly  estimated  by 
those  alone  who  have  not  understood  him.  His 
is  the  most  important  name  in  the  English 
literature  of  this  century,  and  the  power  which 
he  has  exercised  upon  the  thought  of  England, 
and  even  of  America,  is  vast  and  profound. 
In  his  earlier  writings,  in  spite  of  the  latent 
pantheism  which  has  grown  upon  him  with 
such  fatal  effect,  he  appealed  to  the  higher 
and  spiritual  nature  of  man  with  an  eloquence 
which  reaches  the  inmost  soul.  He  is  a  truer 
poet  than  Byron  or  Tennyson;  a  profounder 


THEORIES  OF  LIFE  AND  EDUCATION.     Ijl 

thinker  than  Stuart  Mill  or  Herbert  Spencer; 
and  a  worthier  historian  than  Macaulay  or 
Froude.  He  has  the  most  real  and  subtle 
humor;  the  pathos  of  a  "divine  despair;" 
infinite  indignation;  the  holiest  anger,  and  a 
seraph's  loathing  of  mere  matter;  and  by 
nature  he  is  not  without  tenderness  and  the 
deepest  sympathy. 

His  misfortune  and  defect  is  profound  and 
radical  scepticism  concerning  the  highest  truth. 
Greater  and  more  awful  than  the  eternities, 
the  immensities,  the  unconscious,  he  can  con- 
ceive of  nothing.  The  many-colored  picture 
of  life  is  painted  on  a  canvas  of  darkness,  and 
in  the  background  there  hovers  a  region  of 
doubt  which  thought  cannot  possibly  trans- 
form into  certainty.  He  fails  to  perceive  that 
what  forces  us  to  recognize  a  reality  beneath 
appearances,  proclaims  also  the  presence  of 
mind  in  the  laws  and  harmonies  of  nature. 
The  fearful  and  infinite  force  overwhelms  him, 
and  the  supreme  and  central  power  of  love  and 
wisdom  is  not  felt.  Hence  we  find  him  still, 
as  his  disciple  has  sung  of  himself  — 

"  Wandering  between  two  worlds,  one  dead, 
The  other  powerless  to  be  born." 

After  all  that  can  be  said,  has  been  said,  in 
praise  of  Force,  this  still  remains  to  be  said, 


1/2  THINGS  OF  THE  MIND. 

that  it  cannot  be  loved.  And  yet  except  in 
trustful  love  man  finds  no  peace  and  no 
blessedness. 

"Unhappy  men,"  said  St.  Teresa,  "who  do 
not  love ! " 


CHAPTER  VI. 

CULTURE  AND  RELIGION. 

The  aids  to  noble  life  lie  all  within.  —  MATTHEW  ARNOLD. 


simple  and  comprehensive  idea  of  edu- 
-L  cation  includes  within  itself  almost  every- 
thing. It  is  as  many-sided  as  human  nature, 
and  its  limits  are  as  wide  as  the  capacities  of 
the  soul,  which  in  its  hopes,  desires,  and  aspi- 
rations is  infinite.  All  things  have  an  educa- 
tional value,  and  that  man  is  educable  is  the 
great  and  guiding  fact  in  history.  Forms  of 
government,  laws,  social  customs,  literature, 
industrial  arts,  climate,  and  soil  not  only  edu- 
cate, but  are  esteemed  according  to  the  kind  of 
education  which  they  give.  Whatever  tends  to 
make  one  more  than  he  is  or  to  hinder  him 
from  being  less  than  he  is,  is  a  part  of  educa- 
tion. The  various  races  of  men  are  doubtless 
unlike  in  their  natural  endowments,  but  they 
differ  far  more  widely  by  reason  of  the  dis- 
similar educational  influences  which  have  acted 
upon  them. 


THINGS  OF   THE   MIND. 

It  may  be  affirmed  with  truth  that  our  good 
qualities  are  acquired. 

We  are  taught  to  be  modest,  truthful,  brave, 
gentle,  humane,  as  we  are  taught  to  speak  a 
language.  Excellence  is  thus  a  triumph  over 
nature,  and  virtue  is  the  result  of  victories  over 
instinctive  passion.  The  tendency  so  common 
in  our  day  to  exalt  instinct,  almost  to  conse- 
crate it,  springs  from  an  optimistic  theory  which 
is  utterly  at  variance  with  the  facts.  The  wise 
man  does  not  follow  nature  but  subdues  it  into 
conformity  with  reason ;  though  to  do  this  he 
must,  of  course,  work  in  accordance  with  the 
laws  of  nature.  The  first  and  deepest  element 
in  the  life  of  the  individual  as  of  the  race  is  re- 
ligious faith,  which  consequently  is  the  chief 
and  highest  instrument  of  education.  Religion 
is  man's  supreme  effort  to  rise  above  nature  and 
above  his  natural  self  It  gives  him  a  definite 
aim  and  an  absolute  ideal.  "  Be  ye  perfect,"  it 
says,  "  as  your  Heavenly  Father  is  perfect." 
It  constitutes  him  a  dweller  in  a  world  where 
mere  utility  has  no  place.  It  gives  him  high 
thoughts  of  himself,  and  thereby  exalts  his  aims 
and  heightens  his  standards  of  conduct.  It 
makes  him  feel  that  to  be  true,  to  be  good,  to 
be  beautiful,  is  most  desirable,  even  though 
no  practical  gain  or  use  should  thence  follow. 
It  turns  his  thoughts  to  spiritual  worth  and 


CULTURE  AND  RELIGION.  1/5 

diminishes  his  estimate  of  what  is  accidental  and 
phenomenal.  It  addresses  itself  to  the  soul, 
and  seeks  to  give  it  that  pre-eminence  which  is 
the  condition  of  all  progress ;  for,  "  by  the  soul 
only  shall  the  nations  be  great  and  free."  It 
proclaims  the  paramount  worth  of  right  con- 
duct, which  alone  brings  a  man  at  peace  with 
himself,  and  thus  makes  possible  the  harmoni- 
ous development  of  his  being.  Little  cause  for 
wonder  is  there  that  everywhere  in  all  time 
priests  should  be  the  first  teachers  of  the  race ; 
that  poetry,  and  music,  and  painting,  and  sculp- 
ture, and  architecture  should  first  become  pos- 
sible when  the  creative  voice  of  faith  in  the 
unseen  commands  them  to  exist.  But  upon 
this  it  is  not  my  purpose  now  to  dwell,  and  I 
merely  intimate  that  true  religion,  as  it  appeals 
to  all  man's  highest  faculties  with  supreme 
power,  must  necessarily  promote  true  culture. 
The  direct  aim  of  religion,  however,  is  not  to 
produce  culture,  nor  is  it  the  immediate  aim  of 
culture  to  produce  religion ;  and  it  may,  there- 
fore, happen  that  they  come  in  conflict.  I  take 
the  matter  seriously,  and  have  not  the  faintest 
desire  to  join  in  the  easy  sneer  with  which  this 
word  culture  is  often  received.  That  in  the 
mouths  of  the  frivolous  and  the  vulgar  it  should 
be  no  better  than  cant,  is  only  what  may  happen 
to  any  word  which  such  persons  take  up,  and 

f        *  OF  THE        "^      >^ 

[UNIVERSITY, 


176  THINGS  OF  THE  MIND. 

it  were  wiser  to  reflect  that  the  ideal  of  culture 
has  exercised  an  irresistible  fascination  over 
many  of  the  most  finely  endowed  minds  that 
have  ever  lived. 

The  word  itself  may  not  indeed  be  the  best ; 
but  it  seems  to  serve  the  purpose  better  than 
any  other  which  we  who  speak  English  possess. 
They  who  propose  culture  to  us  as  something 
desirable,  would  have  us  aim  at  a  full  and  har- 
monious development  of  our  nature,  greater 
freedom  from  narrowness  and  prejudice,  more 
disinterested  and  expansive  sympathies,  flexi- 
bility and  openness  of  mind,  courtesy  and  gen- 
tleness, and  whatever  else  goes  to  form  the 
idea  of  a  liberal  education.  And  if  we  ask 
them  what  end  we  may  expect  to  gain  by  fol- 
lowing this  advice,  we  betray  our  inability  to 
appreciate  their  words.  Culture  is  an  end  in 
itself,  and  brings  its  own  reward.  It  is  good  to 
have  a  trained  and  flexible  mind,  wide  and  re- 
fined sympathies.  Just  as  those  who  are  truly 
religious  do  not  value  their  faith  for  any  worldly 
advantage  which  it  may  give  them,  so  the  dis- 
ciples of  culture  cannot  consider  the  pursuit  of 
excellence  as  a  means  of  success.  To  aim  at 
such  a  result  would  be  to  deny  the  virtue  of 
culture.  They  are  little  concerned  with  the  use- 
fulness of  knowledge.  The  knowledge  is  more 
than  its  use,  and  they  choose  rather  to  be  intelli- 
gent than  to  be  rich  or  powerful  or  in  office. 


CULTURE   AND  RELIGION.  177 

To  urge  the  pursuit  of  learning  with  a  view  to 
money-making  is  apostasy  from  light,  is  deser- 
tion to  the  enemies  of  the  soul.  This  opinion, 
it  is  needless  to  say,  is  in  open  conflict  with  our 
American  notions  of  education.  Utility  is  our 
guiding  principle  in  this  matter,  and  to  say  of 
any  kind  of  knowledge  that  it  is  not  useful  is  to 
condemn  it.  The  best  defence  which  we  can 
set  up  in  behalf  of  religion  itself  is  to  prove  that 
it  promotes  the  general  welfare ;  that  it  is  use- 
ful, not  that  it  is  true.  Hardly  any  man  with 
us  is  able  to  rise  above  this  spirit,  which  con- 
trols not  only  our  elementary,  but  equally  our 
higher  education.  We  universally  regard  knowl- 
edge as  a  means  to  worldly  success.  A  certain 
mental  training  we  hold  to  be  essential,  and 
those  who  go  beyond  this  study  with  a  view  to 
entering  some  one  of  the  professions.  But  to 
study  for  even  a  learned  profession  is  not  the 
way  to  get  a  liberal  education ;  for  this  highest 
culture  comes  when  the  mind  is  disciplined  for 
its  own  sake,  and  not  with  the  view  to  narrow 
and  fit  it  to  any  trade  or  business.  Hence,  it 
not  unfrequently  happens  that  successful  pro- 
fessional men  are  almost  wholly  lacking  in  gen- 
eral intelligence,  mental  flexibility,  and  wide 
sympathies.  And  this  is  even  used  as  an  argu- 
ment against  culture. 

That  we  take  a  utilitarian  view  of  education 


178  THINGS  OF   THE  MIND. 

is  neither  accidental  nor  unintentional.  It  is 
the  view  which  our  history  suggests  and  seems 
to  justify,  and  it  is  the  one  which  we  as  a  people 
have  deliberately  chosen  to  adopt.  And  in  the 
estimation  of  a  very  great  many  persons  the 
result  is  satisfactory.  The  aim  is  not  exalted, 
and  it  has  been  attained  with  remarkable  rapid- 
ity and  ease.  Hence  we  are  self-complacent 
and  inclined  to  boastfulness.  We  point  with 
pride  to  our  vast  population,  to  the  boundless 
extent  of  territory  which  we  have  subdued  and 
forced  to  yield  up  its  wealth,  to  the  roads  and 
cities  which  we  have  built,  to  the  schools  which 
are  within  the  reach  of  all  and  are  the  same  for 
all,  to  the  industrial  and  commercial  enterprise 
which  enables  us  to  compete  successfully  in  the 
markets  of  the  world  with  the  oldest  and  richest 
nations,  to  the  inventive  genius  which  leads  in 
the  application  of  mechanical  contrivances  to 
the  production  of  personal  and  social  comfort, 
and,  to  crown  our  happiness,  we  are  the  freest 
of  all  peoples.  That  we  are  faultless  no  one 
pretends  to  claim ;  but  our  achievements  are 
so  real  and  valuable,  that  we  should  not  be  slow 
to  believe  that  the  methods  which  have  enabled 
us  to  accomplish  so  much  will  give  us  also  the 
power  to  overcome  the  dangers  which  may 
threaten  our  peace  and  progress.  Our  aims 
are  mechanical,  and  in  congratulating  ourselves 


CULTURE  AND  RELIGION.  1/9 

upon  the  success  with  which  we  attain  them  we 
lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  these  aims  ought  not 
to  be  pursued  as  ends  in  themselves.  Freedom 
and  wealth,  like  railroads  and  telegraphs,  are 
means  and  not  ends.  Their  value  is  not  in 
themselves,  but  in  what  is  made  possible 
through  them ;  and  it  is  the  office  of  culture  to 
force  people  to  recognize  this.  The  cultivated 
mind  is  smitten  with  the  love  of  an  internal  and 
spiritual  beauty,  and  holds  machinery  cheap. 
It  is  bent  upon  seeing  things  as  they  are ;  it 
looks  through  marble  walls  and  gaudy  liveries 
and  the  smoke  of  factories,  and  will  not  be  con- 
tent until  it  discovers  what  beauty  and  truth,  if 
any,  are  hidden  under  these  shows.  It  is  wholly 
free  from  the  superstition  of  wealth  and  success. 
If  the  rich  man  is  ignorant,  coarse,  and  narrow, 
he  is  a  beggar  in  the  eyes  of  culture.  Fond 
parents  in  this  land  find  great  comfort  in  the 
thought  that  their  boy  may  one  day  be  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States;  but  if  the  President 
is  a  sot  or  a  boor,  culture  will  ignore  him  though 
he  should  hold  office  for  life. 

We  cannot  laugh  at  culture  to  any  good  pur- 
pose, for  it  has  the  spiritual  mind  which  judges 
all  things.  To  the  opinions  of  the  vulgar  it 
gives  no  heed,  and  they  who  have  insight  are 
reverent,  seeing  that  it  is  good.  It  can  be  in- 
different even  to  fame.  Here  again  we  may 


180  THINGS  OF  THE  MIND. 

remark  that  its  unworldly  temper  and  spiritual 
standard  of  perfection  bring  it  into  friendly  re- 
lation with  religion.  Culture  is  concerned  with 
the  formation  of  the  mind  and  the  character, 
and  values  all  things  with  reference  to  this  end. 
It  does  not  despise  temporal  and  mechanical 
benefits,  but  seeks  to  turn  them  to  the  account 
of  the  soul.  The  man  is  more  than  his  money, 
or  his  office,  or  his  trade.  Wealth  is  good  in 
that  it  gives  freedom  and  independence,  the 
opportunity  for  self-improvement.  The  worth 
of  all  this  money-getting  industrialism  which 
absorbs  our  life  is  in  the  preparation  which  it 
makes  for  culture.  The  test  of  civilization  is 
the  degree  of  human  perfection  which  it  pro- 
duces. To  dwell  with  complacency  upon  the 
thought  of  our  cities,  railroads,  and  wealth,  is  to 
be  narrow  and  vulgar.  We  are  not  concerned 
with  wood,  and  stone,  and  iron,  but  with  man. 
What  kind  of  man  will  this  social  mechanism 
shape?  This  is  what  we  are  interested  to  know, 
and  this  is  what  culture  would  have  us  keep  in 
view.  There  are  many  intelligent,  and  other- 
wise not  unfriendly  persons,  who  placing  them- 
selves at  this  standpoint,  find  it  impossible  to 
look  with  enthusiasm  or  even  complacency 
upon  our  American  life.  Renan,  for  instance, 
with  whom  the  idea  of  culture  is  supreme,  takes 
no  pains  to  conceal  his  opinion  of  us.  "  The 


CULTURE  AND   RELIGION.  l8l 

countries,"  he  says,  "  which,  like  the  United 
States,  have  created  a  considerable  popular  in- 
struction, without  any  serious  higher  education, 
will  long  have  to  expiate  this  fault  by  their 
intellectual  mediocrity,  their  vulgarity  of  man- 
ners, their  superficial  spirit,  their  lack  of  general 
intelligence." 

Again :  "  The  ideal  of  American  society  is 
further  removed  than  that  of  any  other  from  the 
ideal  of  a  society  governed  by  science.  The 
principle  that  society  exists  only  for  the  welfare 
and  freedom  of  the  individuals  of  which  it  is 
composed,  would  seem  to  be  contrary  to  the 
plans  of  nature,  which  takes  care  of  the  species, 
but  sacrifices  the  individual.  It  is  greatly  to  be 
feared  lest  the  final  outcome  of  this  kind  of 
democracy  be  a  social  state  in  which  the  degen- 
erate masses  will  have  no  other  desire  than  to 
indulge  in  the  ignoble  pleasures  of  the  lower 
and  vulgar  man/'  And  Renan  thinks  it  proba- 
ble that  the  senseless  vanity  of  a  population 
which  has  received  elementary  instruction,  will 
make  it  unwilling  to  contribute  to  the  mainte- 
nance of  an  education  superior  to  its  own ;  and 
he,  therefore,  has  little  hope  that  democracy 
will  prove  favorable  to  culture  and  the  produc- 
tion of  great  men,  which,  in  his  opinion,  is  the 
end  for  which  the  human  race  exists.  With 
this  view  of  American  life  Matthew  Arnold 


1 82  THINGS  OF  THE  MIND. 

coincides.  The  circumstances  of  the  case  force 
him  to  think  that  America,  the  chosen  home  of 
newspapers  and  politics,  is  without  general  intel- 
ligence; "  and  that  in  the  things  of  the  mind, 
and  in  culture  and  totality,  America,  instead  of 
surpassing  us  all,  falls  short."  The  cause  ©f 
this  he  finds  not  so  much  in  our  democratic 
form  of  gove-rnment  as  in  the  inherited  tenden-* 
cies  of  the  people  of  the  United  States,  which 
issues  from  the  English  Puritan  middle  class 
and  reproduces  its  narrow  conception  of  man's 
spiritual  range. 

Let  us  receive  with  equanimity  and  good- 
nature the  criticism  which  finds  us  so  greatly 
deficient  in  knowledge  and  refinement.  Our 
ability  to  do  this  is  of  itself  encouraging.  The 
era  in  which  it  was  possible  to  think  that  what- 
ever is  American  is  excellent  has  fortunately 
passed,  and  a  greater  familiarity  with  the  his- 
tory, the  literature,  and  the  manners  of  other 
nations  has  taken  the  freshness  from  our  self- 
conceit.  The  sweet  uses  of  adversity  too  have 
taught  us  most  admirable  lessons.  Every  man 
may  have  a  vote,  and  every  child  may  go  to 
school,  and  the  time  may  still  be  out  of  joint; 
the  increase  of  national  wealth  need  not  protect 
the  multitude  from  poverty  and  suffering,  and  the 
growth  of  intelligence  may  coexist  with  the  decay 
of  morals  and  the  loss  of  faith. 


CULTURE  AND  RELIGION.  183 

"It  is  not  fatal  to  Americans,"  says  Arnold, 
"  to  have  no  religious  establishments,  and  no 
effective  centres  of  high  culture ;  but  it  is  fatal 
to  them  to  be  told  by  their  flatterers,  and  to 
believe,  that  they  are  the  most  intelligent  people 
in  the  world,  when  of  intelligence  in  the  true 
and  fruitful  sense  of  the  word,  they  even  singu- 
larly, as  we  have  seen,  come  short." 

Admitting  all,  even  the  worst  that  can  be 
said  of  us  on  this  point,  our  very  enemies  must 
nevertheless  concede  that  the  preparations  for 
a  higher  culture  have  been  made  by  us  and 
exist  under  altogether  favorable  conditions. 
Great  fault  may  be  justly  found  with  our  whole 
educational  mechanism.  The  colleges  and  uni- 
versities are  doubtless  imperfect  enough  and 
often  obstacles  to  the  development  of  intelli- 
gence. But  the  remedy  is  in  our  hands. 

Our  wealth  and  industrialism  place  within  easy 
reach  whatever  can  be  accomplished  by  money, 
and  there  are  no  difficulties  which  may  not  be 
overcome  by  earnest  faith  in  the  ideal  which 
culture  presents.  The  important  question  for 
us  is  whether  this  ideal  ought  to  excite  our 
admiration  and  love.  A  very  great  number 
of  sincere  and  enlightened  men,  representing 
conflicting  tendencies  and  opposite  schools  of 
thought,  look  upon  the  ideal  of  culture  as  false 
and  hurtful  to  the  best  interests  of  man ;  and 


1 84  THINGS  OF   THE   MIND. 

the  objections  which  they  urge  are  numerous 
and  weighty.  The  masses  of  mankind,  they 
say,  have  neither  the  opportunity  nor  the  desire 
for  culture;  and  this  is  fortunate,  for  devotion 
to  this  ideal  has  an  unmistakable  tendency  to 
diminish  zeal  for  the  general  welfare.  The 
men  of  culture  hold  themselves  aloof  from  the 
crowd  and  take  no  interest  in  the  practical  ques- 
tions of  the  day.  They  live  in  a  dreamland  of 
poesy,  and  in  the  consciousness  of  their  inability 
to  help  forward  any  good  cause  content  them- 
selves with  criticism,  which  unsettles  convictions 
and  weakens  the  zest  for  action.  They  preach 
loud  enough  that  the  end  of  life  is  an  act  and 
not  a  thought,  and  yet  both  their  example  and 
their  teaching  tend  to  obscure  all  the  ways  of 
life  in  which  men  are  accustomed  to  labor. 
Goethe  writes  poetry  and  preserves  his  philo- 
sophic serenity  in  the  midst  of  the  appalling 
calamities  of  his  country,  of  which  he  seems 
to  be  altogether  oblivious.  Carlyle,  through 
half  a  century,  chides  his  fellow-men,  accepts 
neither  faith  nor  science,  neither  acts  himself 
nor  points  out  to  others  how  they  may  labor  to 
good  purpose.  Arnold  frankly  admits  that  he 
has  no  desire  to  see  men  of  culture  intrusted 
with  power,  and  were  he  consulted  by  his  coun- 
trymen on  questions  of  actual  moment  he  could 
only  repeat  the  precept  of  Socrates,  "  Know 


CULTURE  AND  RELIGION,  185 

thyself."  When  France  lay  crushed  and  bleed- 
ing at  the  feet  of  Germany,  Renan  withdrew  to 
a  quiet  retreat  to  compose  Platonic  dialogues, 
in  which  he  gives  expression  to  his  contempt 
for  the  crowd  and  his  distrust  of  all  the  popular 
movements  of  the  age.  Culture  thus  seems  to 
produce  a  sceptical  and  effeminate  habit  of  mind 
which  is  incompatible  with  strong  and  abiding 
convictions,  and  consequently  destructive  of 
resolution  and  enthusiasm,  without  which  man 
cannot  accomplish  any  great  purpose  in  life; 
and  Mr.  Frederic  Harrison  may  not  be  wholly 
mistaken  in  thinking  that  the  men  of  culture 
are  the  only  class  of  responsible  beings  in  the 
community  who  cannot  with  safety  be  intrusted 
with  power.  This  he  says  of  England,  and  with- 
out reference  to  America,  where  this  class  can 
hardly  be  said  to  exist  at  all ;  and  the  appre- 
hension of  their  getting  into  power  need  not, 
therefore,  be  a  cause  of  anxiety  to  our  states- 
men, whose  mental  resources,  even  as  things 
are,  seem  to  be  not  more  than  sufficient  to  meet 
the  demands  which  are  made  upon  them.  The 
believers  in  culture,  it  is  further  urged,  are  prop- 
agandists of  a  cosmopolitan  and  non-national 
spirit,  which  undermines  patriotism,  directs  at- 
tention to  an  impossible  ideal,  and  disenchants 
men  of  their  inherited  character,  which,  what- 
ever may  be  its  faults,  is  the  essential  basis  of 


1 86  THINGS  OF   THE  MIND. 

virtue  and  excellence.  The  education  derived 
from  the  national  genius,  like  that  of  the  family, 
cannot  be  supplied  by  any  other  agency,  and 
the  cosmopolitanism  which  ignores  this  must 
necessarily  tend  to  create  a  temper  like  that  of 
the  ideal  Epicurean,  who  is  described  as  indif- 
ferent to  public  affairs  and  the  fate  of  empires, 
and  not  subject  to  any  such  weakness  as  pity 
for  the  poor  or  jealousy  of  the  rich.  In  this 
view,  then,  culture  is  destructive  of  patriotism. 

Other  objections  are  urged  against  its  ethical 
character.  Culture,  it  is  said,  is  only  a  refined 
epicureanism.  Its  aim  is  to  educate  man  so  as 
to  fit  him  for  the  enjoyment  of  the  greatest 
possible  pleasure.  It  shrinks  from  vice,  not 
because  it  is  evil,  but  because  it  is  gross  and 
disgusting.  The  men  of  culture,  like  the  ancient 
Greeks,  are  without  the  sense  of  sin,  and  con- 
sequently at  best  have  but  a  conventional 
morality. 

Aristophanes  was  not  more  pagan  than  Goethe, 
who  is  the  typical  representative  of  the  new 
religion.  He  it  is  who  taught  that  to  be  beauti- 
tiful  is  higher  than  to  be  good ;  and  his  denial 
of  sin  is  implied  in  the  doctrine  that  repentance 
is  wrong.  He  assumes  that  there  is  no  objec- 
tive standard  of  right  and  wrong.  Man  is  a  law 
unto  himself,  and  the  pursuit  of  perfection  is  the 
effort  to  bring  all  his  faculties  into  free  and 


CULTURE  AND  RELIGION.  187 

unhindered  play.  That  which  I  feel  to  be  true 
is  true  for  me ;  that  which  I  feel  to  be  good  is 
good  for  me ;  and  therefore  creeds  and  dogmas, 
whether  religious  or  philosophic,  cease  to  have 
either  life  or  meaning  as  soon  as  the  time-spirit 
has  flown  from  them.  The  web  of  life  is  woven 
of  necessity  and  chance ;  we  must  yield  to  des- 
tiny, and  seek  to  make  the  most  of  chance. 
Happiness  is  to  be  sought,  not  in  the  fulfilment 
of  duty,  but  in  the  sweetness  and  light  which 
are  the  results  of  the  complete  and  harmonious 
development  of  our  nature.  "  Woe  be  to  every 
kind  of  education/'  says  Goethe,  "  which  destroys 
the  means  of  obtaining  true  culture,  and  points 
our  attention  to  the  end  instead  of  securing  our 
happiness  on  the  way."  The  philosophy  of 
culture  is,  then,  it  would  appear,  only  another 
form  of  utilitarianism,  and  tacitly  assumes  that 
greatest-happiness  principle  against  which  it  so 
loudly  protests. 

It,  in  fact,  looks  upon  this  life  as  alone  real 
and  enjoyable,  and  considers  him  a  madman 
who  troubles  himself  here  in  the  hope  of  ob- 
taining blessedness  hereafter.  Morality,  con- 
sequently, is  nothing  absolute,  and  whatever 
secures  our  "  happiness  on  the  way  "  is  good. 
The  point  sought  to  be  made  is  this:  that,  as 
culture  results  intellectually  in  universal  criti- 
cism and  doubt,  so  it  morally  ends  in  unlimited 


1 88  THINGS   OF   7 HE   MIND. 

indulgence.  The  vulgar  herd,  finding  no  delight 
in  the  refined  and  studied  pleasures  of  the  cul- 
tivated, will  have  no  other  way  of  showing  its 
appreciation  of  their  theories  than  by  wallowing 
in  Epicurus's  sty.  And  this,  indeed,  is  the 
history  of  culture  amongst  all  peoples.  We 
know  from  Aristophanes  what  was  the  moral 
condition  of  the  age  of  Pericles  ;  and  he  ascribes 
the  frightful  degeneracy  from  the  standard  of 
conduct  which  made  the  men  who  fought  and 
won  at  Marathon  to  what  he  most  aptly  calls 
the  "  new  education,"  or  in  the  language  of  our 
time,  modern  culture.  The  same  story  is  re- 
peated in  Rome.  Virtue  and  public  spirit  flour- 
ished in  the  midst  of  poverty  and  rustic  man- 
ners; but  when  conquered  Greece  with  the 
silken  cords  of  culture  led  her  captors  captive, 
together  with  letters  and  refinement  every  kind 
of  corruption  was  introduced  into  the  State ; 
and  the  Latin  classics  almost  universally  attrib- 
ute the  ruin  of  their  country  to  this  cause. 
Sallust  considers  a  taste  for  painting  as  a  vice 
no  less  than  drunkenness;  and  Horace  abounds 
in  praise  of  the  rigid  virtue  and  simple  ways  of 
the  fathers.  And  in  modern  times  the  age  of 
Leo  X.  was  an  era  of  moral  degeneracy,  and 
that  of  Louis  XIV.  was  immediately  followed  by 
the  most  humiliating  and  disgraceful  epoch  in 
French  history;  while  in  England,  culture,  as 


CULTURE   AND  RELIGION.  189 

represented  by  the  court  of  Charles  II.,  fostered 
the  most  loathsome  and  hideous  sensuality. 
Germany's  culture  period,  too,  is  one  of  moral 
paralysis,  and  it  is  not  surprising  that  it  should 
have  created  the  philosophy  of  hate  and  despair 
as  taught  by  Schopenhauer  and  Von  Hartmann. 
Goethe  himself  may  inspire  admiration  and 
enthusiasm,  but  not  perfect  respect. 

It  is  further  urged  that  this  historical  relation- 
ship between  culture  and  licentiousness  is 
founded  in  the  nature  of  things ;  that  polite 
literature  and  the  elegant  arts  necessarily  tend 
to  create  frivolous  and  effeminate  habits  of 
thought  and  feeling,  because  they  separate  the 
sentiment  from  the  deed,  whereas  the  end  of 
feeling  is  to  impel  us  to  act.  To  luxuriate 
therefore  in  fine  sentiments,  noble  thoughts, 
and  the  elegancies  of  style,  and  to  rest  in  this 
indulgence  is  of  itself  immoral.  The  springs  of 
action  are  thereby  perverted  from  their  proper 
use,  and  a  character  is  developed  like  that  01 
novel-readers  who  weep  over  the  misfortunes  ot 
imaginary  heroes,  and  spurn  the  wretched  from 
their  door.  The  lovers  of  culture  themselves 
recognize  the  evil  and  the  danger,  and  hence 
they  vociferously  preach  the  necessity  of  ac- 
tion ;  but  in  vain,  as  their  own  example  shows. 
They  give  us  fine  theories,  but  have  no  hope 
of  realizing  them ;  which  is  not  surprising,  for 


1 90  THINGS   OF   THE   MIND. 

the  habit  of  considering  things  from  every  point 
of  view,  and  of  weighing  all  that  can  be  said  for 
and  against  every  opinion,  begets  a  sophistical 
and  hesitating  disposition,  which  as  a  matter 
of  course  renders  action  distasteful,  and  more- 
over warps  the  practical  judgment  and  unfits  it 
for  deciding  upon  any  right  course  of  conduct. 
A  dreamer  is  not  a  man  of  action,  and  the  work 
of  the  world  is  not  done  by  critics. 

St.  Paul's  examples  of  men  who  wrought 
great  things  by  faith  may  be  generalized  and 
applied  universally.  All  heroic  conduct  springs 
from  the  confidence  which  comes  of  faith. 
Knowledge  does  not  suffice;  for  what  will  be 
the  outcome  of  a  given  series  of  human  acts 
cannot  be  known,  and  must  therefore  be  taken 
on  trust.  Men  who  perform  grandly  see  what 
ought  to  be  done  and  move  forward ;  that  is, 
they  trust  their  intuitions,  and  not  the  analysis 
of  a  critical  survey  of  the  situation.  At  the 
battle  of  Lodi,  Napoleon  said  the  bridge  must 
be  taken ;  his  officers  declared  it  impregnable ; 
he  unsheathed  his  sword  and  passed  over  it 
behind  the  fleeing  enemy.  Culture  is  dilettante- 
ism.  It  may  fill  up  an  idle  hour,  but  is  as  im- 
potent to  lead  the  world  as  millinery.  In  fact, 
Arnold  himself  seems  to  perceive  that  it  is  just 
here  that  the  special  weakness  of  the  new  phi- 
losophy is  revealed.  The  men  of  culture  have 


CULTURE  AND  RELIGION,  191 

failed  conspicuously  in  conduct.  They  are  un- 
able even  to  subdue  "  the  great  faults  of  our 
animality."  "  They  have  failed  in  morality, 
and  morality  is  indispensable."  He  insists 
again  and  again  upon  the  paramount  impor- 
tance of  conduct,  and  for  the  development  of 
this  ethical  character  he  trusts  to  religion  and 
not  to  culture.  Hence  though  for  him  God  is 
only  "  the  stream  of  tendency,"  he  will  not  give 
up  the  Bible.  He  throws  aside  indeed  the 
whole  dogmatic  basis  upon  which  the  Bible 
rests,  and  yet  would  still  seem  to  think  that  it 
is  possible  to  preserve  its  moral  teaching ;  and 
this  leads  us  to  another  objection  which  is 
urged  by  the  opponents  of  culture,  namely,  that 
it  is  irreligious.  That  this  objection  is  not  un- 
founded appears  plainly  to  follow  from  what 
has  already  been  said  ;  for  if  culture  fatally  ends 
in  universal  criticism  and  immorality  it  is  obvi- 
ously in  open  conflict  with  religion.  There  is, 
it  is  true,  an  apparent  similarity  in  their  aims 
and  ideals.  Both  propose  perfection  as  the 
end  to  be  sought  for,  and  both  place  this  per- 
fection in  an  inward  spiritual  state,  and  not  in 
any  outward  condition ;  and  neither  therefore 
looks  upon  material  progress  with  the  compla- 
cency which  is  so  natural  to  the  mere  worldling. 
A  deeper  view,  however,  wiil  discover  the  latent 
antagonism.  The  perfection  at  which  culture 


IQ2  THINGS   OF  THE   MIND. 

aims  is  purely  natural  and  has  reference  to  this 
life  alone.  It  loves  excellence  rather  than  vir- 
tue, and  is  enamoured  of  beauty  rather  than  of 
goodness.  Religion  emphasizes  the  evil  of  sin; 
culture  its  grossness.  The  thoughts  of  the  re- 
ligious are  with  God,  while  the  lovers  of  culture 
are  occupied  with  themselves;  and  hence  hu- 
mility is  the  attitude  of  the  one,  and  pride  of 
the  other.  Self  denial  is  accepted  by  culture 
only  as  a  means  to  higher  and  purer  pleasure ; 
by  religion  it  is  inculcated  as  the  proof  of  love. 
Culture  believes  in  this  life  only;  religion  in 
the  life  to  come.  And  finally,  culture  looks 
upon  itself  as  an  end ;  but  in  the  eyes  of  reli- 
gion it  can  be  at  best  merely  a  means. 

As  it  is  not  my  purpose  to  enter  a  plea  on 
behalf  of  culture,  I  shall  be  at  no  pains  to  at- 
tempt an  answer  in  detail  to  all  these  objections. 
That  many  of  them  at  least  are  not  captious, 
but  are  based  upon  real  views  of  the  subject,  I 
am  ready  to  admit ;  and  nevertheless  the  case 
of  those  who  dispute  the  validity  of  the  infer- 
ence which  is  drawn  is,  as  I  take  it,  not  des- 
perate. To  those  who  urge  that  culture  is 
cosmopolitan  and  weakens  the  spirit  of  patriot- 
ism, the  reply  may  be  made  that  an  exagger- 
ated nationalism  has  been  the  cause  of  number- 
less woes  to  the  human  race.  This  is  the 
stronghold  of  war  and  of  all  the  train  of  evils 


CULTURE  AND  RELIGION.  193 

which  follow  in  its  wake ;  this  is  the  source  of 
that  restrictive  legislation  which  has  interfered 
with  free  trade  and  built  barriers  in  the  way  of 
progress ;  this  is  the  foment  of  that  fatal  preju- 
dice which  has  nurtured  a  narrow  conceit,  that 
shuts  the  national  mind  of  each  country  against 
the  world's  experience. 

The  Christian  doctrine  of  the  brotherhood  of 
all  men,  and  of  one  world-wide  spiritual  king- 
dom in  which  all  may  receive  the  rights  of  citi- 
zenship, would  seem  to  point  toward  a  social 
state  in  which  differences  of  race  and  country, 
if  not  obliterated,  will  at  least  remain  compara- 
tively inoperative.  That  the  men  of  culture 
would  make  but  sorry  statesmen  or  leaders  of 
party  we  may  grant.  But  a  poet  is  not  found 
fault  with  because  he  is  not  a  metaphysician, 
nor  is  a  general  criticised  for  lack  of  taste  in  the 
fine  arts.  It  is  quite  as  important  surely  that 
there  should  be  calm  and  enlightened  thinkers 
as  that  there  should  be  sturdy  and  indefati- 
gable workers;  and  precisely  where  men  are 
busiest  with  their  temporal  projects  and  me- 
chanical contrivances,  it  is  well  that  there  should 
be  found  those  who  assume  a  loftier  tone  and 
point  to  higher  aims.  Every  supreme  mind, 
like  the  loftiest  mountain  peaks,  rises  into  a 
region  where  it  dwells,  far  above  the  storm- 


194  THINGS  OF  THE  MIND. 

cloud,  in  serene  solitude ;  and,  therefore,  is  it 
said  that  genius  is  melancholy.  The  most  per- 
fect culture  also  partakes  of  this  loneliness, 
and  is  ill  at  ease  in  the  crowd;  but  this  only 
serves  to  enhance  the  value  of  the  criticism 
which  it  pronounces  upon  the  common  ways 
and  aims  of  men.  He  who,  free  from  the  pas- 
sion and  blinding  dust  of  the  conflict,  surveys 
the  field  from  an  eminence,  sees  many  things 
which  are  hidden  from  the  eyes  of  the  combat- 
ants. It  is  the  fault  of  the  eager  rivalry  of  busy 
life  that  it  leaves  no  time  for  calm  reflection, 
and  hence  active  workers  grow  narrow,  and 
would  bend  the  universe  to  their  little  schemes. 
The  salvation  of  society  is  made  to  depend 
upon  the  crotchet  of  a  politician  or  upon  the 
opening  up  of  a  new  market  for  some  article  of 
commerce,  or  it  is  held  to  be  within  the  com- 
petency of  a  school  system  to  bring  on  the 
millennium.  It  is  certainly  of  the  first  impor- 
tance that  men  be  fed,  and  clothed,  and  gov- 
erned;  but,  as  Goethe  says,  "  the  useful  en- 
courages itself,  for  the  crowd  produce  it  and 
none  can  dispense  with  it;  the  beautiful  needs 
encouragement,  for  few  can  create  it,  and  it  is 
required  by  many."  If  the  men  of  culture  do 
not  act,  they  at  least  furnish  the  means  of  ac- 
tivity to  others.  The  old  alchemists  were  no 


CULTURE  AND  RELIGION.  195 

better  than  dreamers  and  idlers,  but  to  them  we 
are  indebted  for  our  physical  science.  It  is 
easier  to  act  than  to  think ;  and  hence  the 
world  abounds  in  busy  men,  whereas  a  real 
thinker  is  hardly  to  be  met  with.  Should  we 
then  employ  all  our  efforts  to  stimulate  an  ac- 
tivity which  is  already  feverish,  and  do  nothing 
to  encourage  wider  and  profounder  habits  of 
thought?  To  take  the  lowest  view,  it  will 
hardly  be  denied  that  the  power  to  think  cor- 
rectly is  useful.  Idealists  are  often  laughed  at 
in  their  own  day;  but  the  dreams  of  the  present 
not  unfrequently  become  the  recognized  prin- 
ciples of  action  of  the  future.  The  common 
man,  of  course,  living  in  the  present,  is  impa- 
tient to  see  his  labors  bear  immediate  fruit ; 
and  a  vulgar  generation  attaches  little  value  to 
the  good  which  can  be  enjoyed  only  by  those 
who  come  after  it;  but  without  self-denial 
neither  wisdom  nor  virtue  can  exist,  and  to  aim 
at  the  reward  which  comes  of  right  conduct  is 
the  certain  way  to  disappointment. 

The  charge  that  culture  has  an  immoral  ten- 
dency is  more  serious,  and  possibly  not  so  easily 
set  aside,  for  history  seems  to  bear  out  the  asser- 
tion that  ages  of  luxury  and  refinement  have 
been  invariably  remarkable  for  licentiousness  of 
manners.  It  is  plain,  however,  that  the  vices  as 
well  as  the  virtues  of  a  civilized  people  differ  from 


196  THINGS  OF  THE  MIND. 

those  of  barbarians.  The  highway  robber  is  gen- 
erally no  sybarite.  Civilization  brings  large  bodies 
of  men  together  in  cities,  encourages  industry, 
protects  wealth,  creates  classes  that  abound  in 
opulence  and  leisure,  and  it  consequently  offers 
opportunities  for  the  indulgence  of  effeminate 
and  luxurious  habits.  The  spirit  of  an  age  of 
refinement  is  humane  and  merciful.  Its  tastes 
are  nice  and  its  pleasures  attractive.  The  tem- 
pers of  men  are  softened,  and  war  itself  smooths 
its  rugged  front,  and  is  waged  without  vindictive 
cruelty.  The  weak  are  protected,  the  orphan 
is  cared  for,  and  the  poor  find  sympathy.  The 
man  of  culture  sins  by  over-refinement,  the  vul- 
gar man  by  excess  in  indulgence.  Savages  and 
barbarians  are  not  epicures,  but  they  are  the 
slaves  of  gluttony  and  drunkenness  to  a  greater 
extent  than  the  civilized  races.  Again,  venality 
and  bribery  will  not  be  common  in  an  age  in 
which  the  ambitious  and  covetous  find  it  easier  to 
attain  their  ends  by  violence.  It  must  be  borne 
in  mind  too  that  the  literature  of  an  age  of  culture 
generally  becomes  classic,  and  hence  the  vices 
of  those  ages  are  made  immortal,  while  the 
memory  of  the  crimes  of  barbarians  perishes. 
And  there  is  ever  a  spirit  of  restlessness  and 
discontent  in  an  epoch  of  refinement,  which 
causes  men  to  yield  more  readily  to  the  natural 
propensity  to  depreciate  the  present  and  unduly 


CULTURE  AND  RELIGION.  1 97 

exalt  the  past ;  and  it  so  happens  that  its  vices 
are  precisely  those  which  lend  themselves  most 
effectively  to  the  purpose  of  the  satirist.  A  few 
examples  of  cruelty  and  licentiousness  are  fas- 
tened upon,  and  are  so  perverted  as  to  be  made 
to  appear  to  be  the  rule  to  which  they  are  only 
exceptions. 

To  consider  the  subject,  then,  apart  from  the 
question  as  to  the  relation  which  exists  between 
religious  faith  and  morality,  and  this  is  the  view 
we  now  take  of  it,  it  does  not  appear  that  a 
state  of  culture  is  more  favorable  to  vice  than 
barbarism.  It  would  seem  on  the  contrary  that 
knowledge,  refinement,  and  industry  tend  to 
make  men  virtuous.  If  we  hear  less  of  the 
crimes  of  savage  and  barbarous  peoples  it  is  not 
because  they  do  not  abound,  but  because  they 
are  not  recorded,  or  when  recorded  repel  us, 
since  a  cultivated  mind  can  find  no  pleasure  in 
reading  of  rapine,  and  murder,  and  brutish  or- 
gies ;  whereas,  unfortunately,  such  is  the  weak- 
ness of  man,  when  sin  loses  its  grossness  it 
seems  even  to  those  who  are  not  depraved  to 
lose  something  of  its  evil. 

But  after  all  has  been  said  it  must  be  con- 
fessed that  the  history  of  culture  does  not  justify 
us  in  thinking  that  it  is  able  to  create  a  pure 
and  genuine  morality.  At  best  it  but  throws 
the  cloak  of  decency  over  the  ulcer  which  it  is 


198  THINGS  OF  THE  MIND. 

powerless  to  heal.  Ascetic  writers  tell  us  that 
in  order  to  combat  sin  successfully  we  must 
have  a  real  abhorrence  of  it,  and  this  culture 
lacks.  With  it  virtue  is  a  point  of  good  taste, 
and  vice  want  of  breeding ;  and  it  does  not  hate 
the  evil,  but  fears  the  shame  and  confusion  of 
detection.  This,  I  say,  is  the  ethical  character 
of  historical  culture,  and  I  now  proceed  to 
examine  whether  it  is  a  defect  inherent  in 
the  nature  of  culture,  or  an  accident  attributable 
to  the  conditions  under  which  it  has  been 
developed. 

Culture,  in  the  modern  sense  of  the  word,  and 
considered  apart  from  the  influence  of  Chris- 
tianity, is  derived  from  Athens,  the  city  of  mind 
and  the  world's  first  university.  No  people  has 
ever  equalled  the  Athenian  in  mental  versatility, 
grace,  penetration,  and  originality.  The  .pro- 
verb "  To  think  is  difficult;  to  act,  easy  "  seems 
to  be  untrue  in  their  case.  Thought  was  as 
natural  and  as  easy  to  them  as  to  breathe, 
and  there  is  hardly  an  intellectual  or  poetical 
conception  in  modern  literature  which  may  not 
be  found,  in  germ  at  least,  even  in  the  compara- 
tively small  portion  of  their  writings  that  has 
come  down  to  us;  and  their  language  is  still 
the  most  perfect  instrument  of  thought  known 
to  men.  They  were,  and  to  a  great  extent  still 
are,  the  teachers  of  the  civilized  world  in  philos- 


CULTURE  AND  RELIGION.  199 

ophy,  eloquence,  poetry,  and  art ;  and  they  have, 
therefore,  necessarily  exerted,  whether  for  good 
or  evil,  a  vast  ethical  influence.  Now  to  the 
Greek,  virtue  and  beauty  are  identical.  His  re- 
ligion is  the  worship  of  the  beautiful ;  and  the 
good  is  the  fair,  the  harmonious,  the  musical. 
The  very  name  which  he  gave  to  the  universe 
indicated  that  it  revealed  itself  to  his  mind  prima- 
rily under  the  aspect  of  harmony  and  proportion ; 
and  hence  for  conscience  he  substituted  taste,  a 
kind  of  exquisite  sense  of  the  graceful  and  the 
decorous,  and  his  religion  embodied  itself  in 
art.  His  sacred  books  were  poems,  his  temples, 
which  were  models  of  grace  and  symmetry,  were 
open  to  the  heavens  and  bathed  in  the  cheerful 
light  of  day,  and  when  he  offered  sacrifice  and 
prayer  he  was  crowned  with  flowers  and  quaffed 
the  golden  wine  with  song  and  dance.  In  his 
maturity  he  is  only  a  handsome  youth  in  whose 
veins  the  current  of  life  is  full  and  strong.  He 
walks  in  a  perennial  spring,  and  the  flowers  bloom 
wherever  he  goes,  and  the  air  trills  with  the 
matin  songs  of  birds.  He  lives  in  a  world  of 
delights  and  dreads  nothing  but  death.  He 
has  no  thought  of  sin,  the  very  gods  love  what 
he  loves  and  think  no  wrong.  And  when  he 
praises  virtue  it  is  because  it  is  noble,  and  beau- 
tiful, and  full  of  pleasant  sweetness.  It  is  a  fine 
figure,  graceful  and  fair  as  a  statue  of  Pentelic 


200  THINGS  OF  THE  MIND. 

marble  chiselled  by  the  hand  of  Phidias.  Un- 
fortunately, a  theory  based  upon  the  assumption 
that  to  do  right  is  to  do  only  what  is  pleasant 
will  not  fit  into  a  world  which  has  been  wrenched 
from  its  original  harmony.  The  sense  'of  the 
beautiful  was  soon  sunk  in  sensuous  voluptuous- 
ness, and  Athens  has  left  us  nothing  to  admire 
except  her  genius.  And  yet  the  ideal  of  life 
which  her  great  minds  have  traced  out  for  us  is 
so  noble,  so  generous,  that  we  are  hardly  sur- 
prised that  its  winning  grace  and  brightness 
should  create  a  kind  of  worship  in  the  sensitive 
souls  of  poets  and  artists,  and  thus  impress 
inefTaceably  its  own  fair  features  upon  the  cul- 
ture of  all  succeeding  ages.  But  as  this  ideal  is 
without  moral  force  and  the  seriousness  of  char- 
acter which  is  thence  derived,  it  is,  like  many 
fairest  things,  frail  and  unsuited  to  the  stern 
work  of  a  world  where  self-conquest  is  the  price 
of  victory.  There  is  want  of  correspondence 
between  the  inward  strength  and  the  outward 
form,  and  in  thinking  of  this  noble  dream  of 
genius  we  can  but  repeat  the  poet's  lament 
for  Italy :  — 

"  Italia !  oh,  Italia,  thou  who  hast 

The  fatal  gift  of  beauty,  which  became 
A  funeral  dower  of  present  woes  and  past, 

On  thy  sweet  brow  is  sorrow  ploughed  by  shame." 

Culture  is  akin  to  poetry,  but  life  is  mostly 
prose  and  must  rest  upon  a  more   substantial 


CULTURE   AND  RELIGION.  2OI 

basis.  Is  it  not  possible,  then,  we  ask,  to  bring 
to  the  help  of  this  fine  and  artistic  ideal  of 
human  perfection  some  force,  not  its  own,  from 
which  it  may  derive  the  strength  not  to  yield  to 
the  fatality  of  its  natural  bent?  In  other  words, 
can  religion,  whose  dominant  idea  is  morality, 
be  brought  into  friendly  relationship  with  cul- 
ture, the  ruling  thought  of  which  is  beauty,  or 
to  use  the  accepted  phrase,  sweetness  and  light? 
In  introducing  the  present  examination  I  stated 
that  there  need  be  no  antagonism  between  true 
religion  and  true  culture,  and  I  now  find  that  I 
am  called  upon  to  defend  or  else  to  withdraw 
this  affirmation.  "  Deny  thyself"  is  the  word 
of  Christ;  "  Think  of  living"  is  the  precept  of 
culture;  and  certainly  the  self-indulgent  and 
pleasure-seeking  life  of  the  Greek  is  the  very 
opposite  of  the  ideal  which  is  presented  to  the 
Christian.  The  one  looks  upon  this  earth  as  a 
garden  of  delight;  the  other  has  no  abiding 
city  here,  but  passes  as  a  pilgrim,  who  in  the 
midst  of  gay  scenes  is  restless,  for  his  thoughts 
are  with  those  he  loves  in  the  far-off  home. 
The  Greek  rests  in  nature  and  worships  it;  the 
Christian  looks  through  nature  to  God,  and 
places  it  beneath  his  feet.  To  the  one  the  cross 
is  foolishness ;  to  the  other  it  is  the  power  and 
wisdom  of  God.  That  culture  is  not  Christian- 
ity, needs  no  proof.  Its  whole  history  is  char- 


2O2  THINGS  OF   THE  MIND. 

acterized  by  the  absence  of  that  moral  earnest- 
ness which  is  the  very  soul  of  religious  faith, 
and  it  therefore  lacks  an  element  which  is  the 
chief  constituent  of  human  perfection.  If  cul- 
ture is  not  Christianity,  is  Christianity  culture; 
or  is  it  also  partial  and  without  the  power  to 
create  a  fully-developed  humanity?  This  is  the 
charge  that  Arnold,  while  frankly  confessing  the 
shortcomings  of  culture,  brings  against  religion, 
which,  he  thinks,  takes  a  narrow  view  of  man, 
and  is  destined  finally  to  be  transformed  and 
governed  by  the  Hellenic  idea  of  beauty  and  of 
a  human  nature  perfect  on  all  its  sides.  His 
criticisms  on  this  subject,  which  are  aimed 
chiefly  at  the  Protestant  theory  of  Christianity, 
are  sprightly  and  entertaining.  The  Pilgrim 
Fathers,  he  says,  and  their  standard  of  perfec- 
tion are  rightly  judged  "  when  we  figure  to  our- 
selves Shakespeare  or  Virgil  —  souls  in  whom 
sweetness  and  light  and  all  that  in  human  nature 
is  most  humane  were  eminent  —  accompanying 
them  on  their  voyage,  and  think  what  intolera- 
ble company  Shakespeare  and  Virgil  would  have 
found  them." 

"And  the  work,"  he  says,  "which  we  collec- 
tive children  of  God  do,  our  grand  centre  of 
life,  our  city  which  we  have  builded  for  us  to 
dwell  in,  is  London  !  London,  with  its  unutter- 
able external  hideousness,  and  with  its  internal 


CULTURE  AND  RELIGION.  203 

canker  of  publice  egestas,  privatim  opulentia,  — 
to  use  the  words  which  Sallust  puts  into  Cato's 
mouth  about  Rome,  —  unequalled  in  the  world  ! 
The  word,  again,  which  we  children  of  God 
speak,  the  voice  which  most  hits  our  collective 
thought,  the  newspaper  with  the  largest  circula- 
tion in  England,  nay,  with  the  largest  circulation 
in  the  whole  world,  is  the  Daily  Telegraph  /  " 
Real  Protestantism,  Arnold  thinks,  is  not  merely 
lacking  in  sweetness  and  light,  but  is  positively 
hideous  and  grotesque;  and  he  remarks  that 
there  are  things  in  which  defect  of  beauty  is 
defect  of  truth.  "  Behavior,"  he  says,  "  is  not 
intelligible,  does  not  account  for  itself  to  the 
mind  and  show  the  reason  for  its  existing,  unless 
it  is  beautiful,  The  same  with  discourse,  the 
same  with  song,  the  same  with  worship,  —  all  of 
them  modes  in  which  man  proves  his  activity 
and  expresses  himself.  To  think  that  when  one 
produces  in  these  what  is  mean  or  vulgar  or 
hideous,  one  can  be  permitted  to  plead  that  one 
has  that  within  which  passes  show,  it  is  abhor- 
rent to  the  nature  of  Hellenism  to  concede.'* 
Again:  "  Instead  of  our  'one  thing  needful' 
justifying  in  us  vulgarity,  hideousness,  ignor- 
ance, violence,  —  our  vulgarity,  hideousness, 
ignorance  violence,  are  really  so  many  touch- 
stones which  try  our  one  thing  needful,  and 
which  prove  that,  in  the  state  at  any  rate  in 


0NIVERSI 


204  THINGS   OF  THE  MIND. 

which   we    ourselves    have    it,  it   is   not  all  we 
want." 

Arnold's  culturism  is  not  original,  any  more 
than  Carlyle's  mysticism.  The  one  and  the  other 
are  only  English  interpretations  of  German  and 
French  thought,  and  Arnold  himself  would  be 
the  first  to  acknowledge  this ;  nay,  he  has  con- 
fessed as  much  in  the  following  words:  "Now, 
as  far  as  real  thought  is  concerned,  thought 
which  affects  the  best  reason  and  spirit  of  man, 
the  scientific  or  the  imaginative  thought  of  the 
world,  the  only  thought  which  deserves  speaking 
of  in  this  solemn  way,  America  has  up  to  the 
present  time  been  hardly  more  than  a  province 
of  England,  and  even  now  would  not  herself 
claim  to  be  more  than  abreast  of  England ;  and 
of  this  only  real  human  thought,  English  thought 
itself  is  not  just  now,  as  we  must  all  admit,  the 
most  significant  factor."  To  get  a  satisfactory 
view  of  his  position  we  must,  therefore,  pass  over 
to  the  continent  of  Europe,  with  the  understand- 
ing, however,  that  no  attempt  be  made  to  reduce 
his  views  to  a  system.  Lacordaire  declared  that, 
by  the  grace  of  God,  he  abhorred  the  common- 
place; and  Arnold,  with  or  without  such  grace, 
abhors  all  systems,  whether  mechanical,  political, 
metaphysical,  or  theological.  His  chapters  on 
"The  God  of  Metaphysics,"  in  which  by  a  few 
simple  etymologies  and  with  perfect  gatte  de 


CULTURE  AND  RELIGION.  20$ 

c<zur  he  dissipates  into  thin  air  the  profoundest 
thought  of  the  greatest  minds  who  have  ever 
lived,  will  doubtless  be  immortal  as  a  curiosity 
of  literature.  He  has  no  system,  but  he  has  a 
method,  which  is  that  of  the  modern  critical 
school,  which  assumes  as  fundamental  the  cele- 
brated maxim  of  Protagoras,  that  "  man  is  the 
measure  of  all  things."  The  eternal,  the  all- 
perfect  does  not  exist  except  as  a  mode  of 
thought,  which  is  simply  the  effort  of  the  thinker 
to  posit  himself  as  an  absolute  principle  and  to 
refer  all  things  to  himself.  True  and  fruitful 
thought  consequently  is  not  that  which  is  in 
accord  with  any  definite  and  fixed  object,  but 
that  which  moves  in  harmony  with  the  stream  of 
tendency  and  is  carried  upon  the  out-spread 
wings  of  the  time-spirit.  There  is,  in  fact,  no 
truth,  but  only  opinions ;  no  color,  but  only 
shades,  and  we  must,  therefore,  abandon  as 
utterly  hopeless  the  effort  to  know  things  in 
themselves,  and  content  ourselves  with  studying 
their  evolutions;  throw  aside  metaphysics  and 
psychology  as  the  childish  toys  of  an  infantine 
race,  and  take  up  in  their  stead  history  and  criti- 
cism. The  characteristic  mark  of  the  true  critic 
is  a  disinterested  curiosity,  and  that  this  word  has 
in  English  only  a  bad  and  feminine  sense,  Arnold 
thinks  a  grievance.  The  critic  does  not  search 
for  the  truth  which  does  not  exist,  but  he  seeks 


206  THINGS  OF  THE  MIND. 

to  supple  his  mind  so  that  he  may  be  able  to 
see  things  on  all  sides,  and  remain  an  enlight- 
ened and  impartial  spectator  of  the  dissolving 
views  of  a  world  which  is  only  an  eternal  flux; 
and  that  his  appreciation  may  be  the  keener,  he 
becomes  a  part  of  all  that  he  beholds.  He  is  a 
citizen  of  the  universe,  and  moves  in  calm  indif- 
ference in  all  times  and  places,  amongst  all  re- 
ligions and  philosophies.  He,  however,  has  an 
unmistakable  penchant  for  religious  discussions, 
as  though  after  having  denied  the  reality  of  God 
and  the  soul  he  were  still  haunted  by  their  phan- 
toms. He  is  capable,  even  as  Renan,  Ewald, 
and  Arnold  have  shown,  of  a  sort  of  poetical  and 
sad  devoutness,  which,  if  it  were  not  ridiculous, 
would  be  pathetic.  He  has  no  toleration  for  the 
unintelligent  and  vulgar  rage  against  religion 
which  is  manifested  by  popular  liberalism  and 
atheism.  When  Clifford  breaks  out  into  violent 
invectives  and  calls  Christianity  an  awful  plague, 
Arnold  in  a  sweet  and  winning  tone  gives  him  a 
gentle  rebuke,  though  his  anger  is  not  aroused 
in  this  instance  as  it  was  by  Bishop  Wilberforce 
when  he  spoke  of  laboring  for  the  honor  and 
glory  of  God.  "  One  reads  it  all,"  he  says,  "  half 
sighing,  half  smiling,  as  the  declamation  of  a 
clever  and  confident  youth,  with  the  hopeless 
inexperience,  irredeemable  by  any  cleverness  of 
his  age.  Only  when  one  is  young  and  head- 


CULTURE  AND  RELIGION.  2O/ 

strong  can  one  thus  prefer  bravado  to  experi- 
ence, can  one  stand  by  the  Sea  of  Time,  and 
instead  of  listening  to  the  solemn  and  rhythmical 
beat  of  its  waves,  choose  to  fill  the  air  with  one's 
own  whoopings  to  start  the  echo."  His  writings, 
in  fact,  he  takes  the  trouble  to  inform  us,  have 
no  other  object  than  to  save  the  Christian  relig- 
ion from  its  friends,  who  by  teaching  that  it  is 
inseparable  from  specific  dogmas  are  placing  it 
and  themselves  in  fatal  antagonism  to  the  time- 
spirit  and  the  critic,  who  is  its  prophet.  In 
reality  the  essential  thought  of  culturism,  as 
conceived  by  the  school  from  which  Arnold  has 
drawn  his  opinions,  does  not  differ  from  that  of 
mysticism  or  any  of  the  other  forms  of  modern 
pantheism.  Its  distinguishing  characteristic  is 
found  not  in  its  idea  but  in  its  temper.  As  an 
intellectual  theory  it  is  purely  pantheistic.  It 
regards  the  universe  as  its  own  final  and  efficient 
cause,  and  maintains  that  it  is  absurd  to  affirm 
the  existence  of  any  being  distinct  from  the 
cosmos ;  and  hence  it  teaches  that  God  is  not  a 
person  who  knows  and  loves,  but  a  "  stream  of 
tendency/'  a  law,  a  modality ;  or,  to  take  Kenan's 
definition,  the  form  under  which  we  conceive  the 
ideal,  as  space  and  time  are  the  forms  under 
which  matter  is  made  intelligible  to  us.  God  is 
only  the  category  of  the  ideal,  and  when  the 
German  pantheists  declare  that  man  makes  God, 


208  THINGS  OF  THE  MIND. 

that  man  creates  God  in  thinking  Him,  they  do 
not  mean  to  blaspheme  or  to  be  smart,  but 
merely  pronounce  a  logical  conclusion  from  their 
own  theories.  But  when  men  who  make  God  a 
modality,  a  form  of  thought,  talk  about  saving 
the  Bible  and  Christianity,  we  have  a  perfect 
right  to  turn  away  from  them  as  solemn  triflers 
in  a  matter  which,  least  of  all,  admits  of  such 
proceeding.  The  idea  then  of  culturism  is  pan- 
theistic, which  is  the  equivalent  of  atheistic;  and 
as  atheism  is  the  negation  of  religion,  any  attempt 
to  bring  about  an  alliance  between  religion  and 
culture,  upon  the  intellectual  basis  offered  by 
the  critical  school,  is  preposterous,  for  the  sim- 
ple reason  that  the  hypothesis  which  this  school 
accepts  as  true  makes  religion  impossible. 
When  Renan  and  Arnold  assure  us  that  they  do 
not  seek  to  weaken  the  religious  sentiment  but 
to  purify  it,  we  can  but  liken  them  to  a  physician 
who  in  order  to  purge  out  the  humors  of  the 
blood  should  think  it  necessary  first  to  destroy 
life. 

A  religion  of  sweetness  and  light  in  a  Godless 
world,  which  crushes  beneath  the  iron  wheel  of 
fate  the  weak  and  the  helpless,  and  has  no  favors 
except  for  the  strong,  is  a  piece  of  Mephistophe- 
lean irony,  compared  with  which  the  pessimism 
of  Schopenhauer  is  as  soothing  as  the  quiet 
landscape  to  one  who  flies  from  the  feverish  life 


CULTURE  AND  RELIGION.  2OQ 

of  the  noisy  crowd.  Is  it  not  enough  that  these 
men  are  persuaded  that  there  is  no  God  and  no 
soul?  Why  should  they  come  to  us  proclaiming 
that  the  earth  is  only  a  charnel-house,  and  in 
the  same  breath  grow  eloquent  over  the  refresh- 
ing and  refining  influence  which  this  discovery 
of  theirs  must  have  upon  those  who  are  able  to 
appreciate  its  importance?  To  be  just,  how- 
ever, I  must  leave  Arnold  to  bear  alone  the  bur- 
den of  this  officious  piety.  One  must  be  an 
Englishman  to  be  able  to  deny  God  and  still 
continue  to  preach  with  all  the  unction  of  a 
Methodist  exhorter.  Renan  is  consistent,  and 
therefore  assumes  a  different  tone.  He  is  abso- 
lutely without  zeal  or  the  spirit  of  proselytism. 
He  has  nothing  to  say  of  the  beneficent  influ- 
ence of  sweetness  and  light;  he  seems  rather 
disposed  to  think  that  when  the  whole  truth  is 
known  existence  may  become  unbearable ;  that 
the  planets  in  which  life  is  extinct  are  probably 
those  in  which  criticism  has  achieved  its  work. 
He  eschews  controversy,  and  takes  little  inter- 
est in  the  questions  which  occupy  the  thoughts 
of  men.  His  aims  are  purely  speculative,  and 
have  no  relevancy  to  contemporaneous  events. 
He  is  an  artist,  seated  on  the  brow  of  a  hill,  who 
sketches  the  landscape,  but  has  nothing  in  com- 
mon with  the  herds  that  graze  upon  the  plain 
below.  He  is  in  fact  a  quietist,  and  from  the 
14 


210  THINGS  OF  THE  MIND. 

eminence  of  his  exceptional  position  surveys  the 
world  with  a  feeling  akin  to  that  which  a  spirit 
from  some  higher  sphere  might  be  supposed  to 
have  in  contemplating  the  busy,  fussy  little  ants 
that  jostle  one  another  on  this  mole-hill  of  an 
earth.  God  is  only  an  idea ;  nature  exists,  but 
is  unmoral ;  good  and  evil  are  alike  indifferent 
to  her;  and  history,  from  an  ethical  point  of 
view,  is  a  permanent  scandal.  This  is  the  final 
word  of  culture  as  revealed  by  Renan,  and  he 
naturally  enough  partakes  of  the  Buddhist  tem- 
per, to  which  annihilation  appears  to  be  the 
supreme  good.  And  this  is  doubtless  the  mood 
which  culture,  as  understood  by  the  critical 
school,  tends  to  produce.  Its  intellectual  prin- 
ciple is  pantheism,  its  ethical  principle  is  the 
identity  of  the  good  and  the  beautiful,  and  his- 
torically it  evolves  itself  either  into  the  animalism 
of  the  senses  or  into  the  quietism  of  a  fatalistic 
philosophy;  and  whichever  form  it  assumes,  it 
must  inevitably  fail  to  make  reason  and  the  will 
of  God  prevail. 

But  one  may  surely  be  a  lover  of  culture  with- 
out being  forced  to  adopt  the  principles  of 
Renan  and  Arnold,  —  as  one  may  be  reasonable 
and  yet  hold  to  positive  beliefs ;  as  one  may 
have  taste  without  denying  conscience. 

Culture  may  indeed  easily  become  the  insid- 
ious foe  of  revealed  religion,  but  it  may  also  be 


CULTURE  AND  RELIGION.  211 

its  serviceable  ally ;  and  since  in  our  day  many 
of  the  most  thoroughly  trained  and  versatile 
minds  are  employed  in  the  service  of  unbelief, 
it  is  certainly  most  desirable,  and  from  a  human 
point  of  view  even  necessary,  that  they  be  met 
by  intellects  of  equal  discipline  and  power.  We 
are  living  in  an  epoch  of  transition.  The  decay 
of  faith  in  the  Protestant  sects  is  accelerated  by 
the  consciousness  that  their  existence  is  a  con- 
tradiction of  the  fundamental  principle  of  Prot- 
estantism ;  and  among  Catholics  a  wide-spread 
indifference,  and  new  modes  of  thought  created 
by  the  scientific  developments  of  the  age,  have 
cooled  the  zeal  and  weakened  the  faith  of  many. 
The  wavering  of  religious  belief  has  unsettled 
all  other  things,  so  that  nothing  seems  any 
longer  to  rest  upon  a  firm  and  immovable  basis. 
The  new  theories  are  in  the  air,  and  precaution- 
ary measures  are  ineffectual,  at  least  with  regard 
to  society  in  general.  There  has  never  been  a 
time  in  the  world's  history,  in  which  the  influ- 
ence of  literature  was  so  all-pervading  as  at 
present,  and  this  power  is  in  great  measure 
anonymous  and  irresponsible.  Reviews  and 
newspapers  discuss  everything  and  are  read  by 
everybody,  so  that  any  youth  is  prepared  to 
pronounce  you  an  authoritative  judgment  as 
to  whether  there  is  a  God.  The  gravest  and 
most  sacred  subjects  are  treated  in  a  mock- 


212  THINGS   OF  THE   MIND. 

serious  tone  which  is  worse  than  open  blas- 
phemy. The  old  Protestant  controversy  is  as 
obsolete  as  the  dress  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers. 
Questions  of  grace,  election,  and  free-will,  have 
ceased  to  have  any  interest  for  men  who,  insist- 
ing upon  their  right  of  private  judgment  and 
the  supremacy  of  the  individual  mind,  are  puz- 
zled to  know  whether  God  and  the  soul  exist ; 
and  the  famous  ministerial  jousts,  in  which  the 
doughty  champions  were  wont  to  brandish  their 
favorite  texts  like  flaming  swords,  have  lost  their 
dramatic  effect  and  are  grown  altogether  tame 
in  the  eyes  of  a  generation  which  hears  every 
day  that  the  Bible  itself  is  but  the  fairy  tale  of 
an  ignorant  and  superstitious  age.  The  old 
disputes  will  doubtless  survive  for  a  time,  and 
individuals  and  even  classes  may  be  helped  by 
them,  but  the  real  issue,  so  far  as  the  active 
mind  of  the  age  is  concerned,  has  already  been 
transferred  to  quite  other  grounds,  and  it  is 
our  immediate  and  urgent  duty  to  fit  our- 
selves for  the  new  conflict,  which  is  not  be- 
tween the  Church  and  the  sects,  but  between 
the  Church  and  infidelity.  The  argument  is  to 
be  made  fundamental  and  exhaustive.  All  phi- 
losophies and  sciences  are  to  be  interrogated; 
all  literatures  to  be  studied ;  all  forms  of  belief 
are  to  be  analyzed ;  all  methods  are  to  be  used ; 
and  the  infinitely  great  and  the  infinitesimally 


CULTURE  AND  RELIGION.  213 

small  are  to  be  required  to  give  up  their  secret. 
The  religious  import  of  the  sciences  is  precisely 
what  lends  to  this  study  its  mysterious  charm. 
The  physical  comfort  which  may  be  derived 
from  a  wider  and  truer  acquaintance  with  nature 
is  of  minor  importance.  That  which  the  phi- 
losopher and  the  man  of  the  world  are  yearn- 
ing to  learn  from  all  this  eager  and  ceaseless 
peering  into  the  forms  and  workings  of  matter  is 
whether  or  not  any  authentic  response  will  be 
given  to  the  eternal  questionings  of  the  human 
heart  about  God,  the  soul,  and  the  life  that  is 
to  be.  This  restlessness  and  scepticism  is 
doubtless  pathological.  If  men  had  faith,  they 
would  not  be  tormented  by  the  feverish  anxiety 
to  surprise  God  in  the  mysteries  which  he  has 
hidden  from  human  eye ;  but  they  have  no 
faith,  and  since  it  is  impossible  for  the  mind  to 
remain  indifferent  to  the  infinite  mystery  which 
is  everywhere  in  all  that  it  sees  and  thinks, 
therefore  do  men  who  have  ceased  to  believe 
seek  to  satisfy  by  knowledge  the  inborn  craving 
of  the  soul  for  some  tidings  from  the  inner  truth 
of  things.  They  will  take  nothing  for  granted, 
but  make  God  himself  questionable.  And  here 
at  once  we  may  perceive  the  arduousness  of 
the  task  which  is  imposed  upon  those  who  are 
called  to  the  defence  of  the  faith  in  our  day. 
The  first  step  their  adversaries  take  leads  into 


214  THINGS   OF   THE  MIND. 

the  bottomless  abyss  of  endless  speculation  and 
doubt.  In  the  Protestant  controversy  there  was 
the  common  and  certain  ground  of  the  Written 
Word,  to  which  in  the  confusion  of  debate  it 
was  possible  to  return  to  take  bearings,  while 
the  deists  of  the  last  century  agreed  with  their 
opponents  in  admitting  the  existence  of  God  as 
indisputably  evident  to  the  natural  reason.  But 
the  new  phase  of  infidelity  would  make  knowl- 
edge itself  inconclusive  in  all  matters  where  our 
concern  is  with  the  absolute  truth  of  things.  It 
denies  that  there  is  any  such  truth,  or  at  least 
that  it  is  discoverable  by  man.  I  find  in  all 
the  current  theories  of  unbelief  the  assumption 
that  all  that  can  be  known  is  the  relative,  and 
that  the  highest  conceivable  philosophy  is  only 
phenomenology.  With  men  who  hold  such 
opinions  it  is  impossible  to  reason  from  fixed 
principles.  The  old  methods  fail  to  reach  them. 
All  the  syllogisms  that  can  be  strung  together 
can  never  compass  a  higher  truth  than  that 
which  is  given  in  the  original  intuition,  and  if 
this  does  not  attain  to  the  reality  underlying 
the  phenomenon  neither  will  our  conclusions. 
The  assumption  that  knowledge  is  only  the  per- 
ception of  relations  makes  all  discussions  as  to 
what  anything  is  in  itself  appear  futile  and 
childish.  Hence  the  contempt  of  the  modern 
schools  for  metaphysics  and  the  scholastic 


CULTURE  AND   RELIGION.  21  5 

methods.  The  great  practical  difficulty,  as  I 
take  it,  in  successfully  controverting  the  new 
theories  lies  in  the  fact  that  they  represent 
modes  of  viewing  things  rather  than  states  of 
mind.  They  are  not  held  as  conclusions  from 
unanswerable  arguments,  but  as  a  way  of  ac- 
counting for  phenomena  which  is  justified  by 
the  convergence  of  innumerable  plausibilities 
toward  a  given  line  of  thought.  It  is  consid- 
ered to  be  enough  that  they  are  in  accord  with 
the  tendencies  of  the  age,  and  in  harmony  with 
the  great  time-spirit,  who,  as  these  philosophers 
teach,  has  usurped  the  throne  of  the  Eternal 
and  Omnipotent  God.  A  few  words  will  suffice 
to  sketch  in  general  outline  this  system,  and  at 
the  same  time  to  show  how  widely  it  prevails. 
It  is  assumed  that  God  is  not  or  cannot  be 
known  to  be,  and  as  philosophy  is  phenome- 
nology, it  starts  with  matter  in  the  state  in  which 
it  is  possible  for  the  mind  first  to  detect  it. 
Space  is  filled  with  incandescent  gas,  star-dust, 
from  which  the  sidereal  systems  are  evolved. 
This  view,  for  the  correctness  of  which  many 
arguments  are  adduced,  receives  additional 
weight  from  the  study  of  our  own  planet,  which, 
beginning  as  an  incandescent  mass,  has  during 
long  ages  been  gradually  cooling.  When  life 
first  appears  it  is  in  its  lowest  forms,  and  there 
is  progression  up  to  man.  To  this  point  it  is 


2l6  THINGS  OF  THE  MIND. 

maintained  the  astronomer  and  the  geologist  are 
able  to  conduct  us.  The  zoologist  now  comes 
to  trace  the  descent  of  man,  as  the  geologist  has 
followed  the  evolution  of  the  globe,  and  Darwin 
and  others  find  that  he  has  been  developed  by 
natural  processes  from  the  lowest  forms  of  life. 
The  question  of  man's  special  endowments  thus 
presents  itself,  and  the  psychologist  attempts  to 
show  that  thought  is  transformed  sensation,  and 
will,  transformed  emotion,  as  man  is  a  trans- 
formed animal. 

The  principle  of  evolution  is  applied  to  the 
history  of  language  and  of  races  in  philology 
and  ethnology,  and  these  sciences  are  made 
auxiliary  to  the  new  theories.  The  sociologist 
next  appears,  to  unravel  the  infinitely  compli- 
cated and  intricate  network  of  human  relations, 
and  to  point  out  how  this  marvellous  and  entan- 
gled scheme  is  but  the  product  of  a  few  rudi- 
mentary instincts.  And  finally,  the  philosopher 
of  history  proposes  to  account  for  the  whole 
life  and  all  the  achievements  of  the  human  race 
by  the  aid  of  fatalistic  laws.  Given  the  race, 
and  its  surroundings,  and  he  will  offer  you  a 
mechanical  rule  by  which  you  will  be  able 
to  explain  everything,  —  religion,  literature, 
and  social  institutions.  It  would,  of  course, 
be  beside  my  present  purpose  to  stop  to  point 
out  the  absurdities  and  the  gaps  in  all  this,  but 


CULTURE   AND  RELIGION,  2 1/ 

what  I  wish  to  call  attention  to  is  the  fact  that 
this  is  a  way  of  looking  at  the  universe,  and  that 
little  or  nothing  is  gained  by  insisting  upon 
errors  in  detail  or  by  showing  that  certain  data 
of  science  are  in  accord  with  revealed  truth. 
The  fault  is  radical  and  universal,  and  the  only 
effective  method  of  dealing  with  it  is  to  be 
sought  in  a  comprehensive  philosophy,  which, 
starting  from  a  true  theory  of  knowledge  will 
embrace  the  whole  range  of  science,  and  by 
correcting  the  false  interpretations  of  its  data, 
will  educate  men  and  lead  them  to  see  that  a 
theory  of  the  universe  which  excludes  God  is 
not  only  unintelligible,  but  destructive  of  the 
essential  principles  of  reason.  The  intellectual 
difficulties  with  which  the  present  generation  of 
believers  have  to  contend  are  greater  than  in 
any  past  age.  It  is  not  possible  to  laugh  at 
our  adversaries  unless  we  are  content  to  make 
ourselves  ridiculous.  In  matters  of  this  kind 
sarcasm  and  vituperation  are  not  only  out  of 
place,  but  are  no  better  than  the  language  of 
the  devil.  Smart  hits  intended  for  the  crowd 
fail  of  effect  even  with  the  masses. 

That  in  the  end,  and  after  never  so  much 
science  and  theory,  the  perfect  wisdom  of  hum- 
ble and  trusting  faith  will  be  made  only  the 
more  evident  is  in  no  way  doubtful ;  but  in  the 
meantime  we  may  not  stand  as  idle  lookers-on, 


2l8  THINGS   OF  THE   MIND. 

and  as  though  we  had  no  part  or  concern  in  this 
mighty  and  painful  conflict. 

It  was  a  principle  with  St.  Ignatius  of  Loyola 
that  a  Christian  should  have  the  faith  which 
hopes  everything  from  God,  and  then  act  as 
though  he  expected  nothing  except  from  his 
own  exertions. 

No  maxim  could  be  more  applicable  to  the 
emergency  of  which  I  am  writing.  I  know  that 
our  blessed  Lord  is  with  his  Church,  and  that 
he  can  turn  our  ignorance  and  supineness  to 
the  good  of  those  who  love  him.  I  know  that 
whatever  we  may  do  we  are  useless  servants. 
The  prayer  of  the  humble  is  better  than  the 
thoughts  of  the  learned,  and  a  great  saint  is 
able  to  do  a  holier  work  than  the  most  perfectly 
cultivated  genius. 

All  this  is  indisputable,  and  one  benefit  to 
be  hoped  for  from  a  higher  culture  would  be 
the  power  to  realize  more  truly  what  we  are 
so  ready  to  admit  in  theory.  My  words,  if 
addressed  to  those  devout  and  saintly  souls 
who  with  unutterable  groanings  raise  to  God  the 
voice  of  prayer  which  penetrates  the  heavens, 
would  be  an  impertinence.  It  may  well  be  that 
were  it  not  for  these  just  ones  we  should  all 
perish.  My  thought  is  lower  and  is  intended 
for  those  who,  in  the  midst  of  a  thousand  imper- 
fections, feel  that  they  are  better  fitted  to  fight 


CULTURE   AND  RELIGION.  2IQ 

in   the   plain    below   than   to    lift  up   hands  of 
supplication  on  the  holy  mount. 

The  issue  indeed  is  in  God's  keeping,  but  we 
must  strive  to  quit  ourselves  like  men,  and  as 
though  all  depended  upon  our  skill  and  courage. 
Without  thorough  training  and  mental  discipline 
we  shall  only  cumber  the  ground  and  block  the 
way. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

PATRIOTISM. 

AND  Thou,  O  God,  of  whom  we  hold 

Our  country  and  our  Freedom  fair, 
Within  Thy  tender  love  enfold 

This  land  ;  for  all  Thy  people  care. 
Uplift  our  hearts  above  our  fortunes  high, 

Let  not  the  good  we  have  make  us  forget 
The  better  things  that  in  Thy  heavens  lie  ! 

Keep,  still,  amid  the  fever  and  the  fret 
Of  all  this  eager  life,  our  thoughts  on  Thee, 

The  Hope,  the  Strength,  the  God  of  all  the  Free. 

LOVE  of  country  springs  from  so  many 
sources  which  have  their  fountain-head 
in  our  inmost  being  that  it  scarcely  needs  com- 
mending; and  it  has  found  such  abundant  and 
varied  expression  in  the  art  and  literature  of 
all  nations  that  it  is  difficult  to  praise  it  without 
falling  into  commonplace.  Each  one  seems  to 
himself,  if  he  go  not  beyond  primitive,  unreflect- 
ing consciousness,  a  separate,  independent  being, 
whose  thought,  love,  and  deeds  are  determined 
simply  by  his  own  personality.  A  little  atten- 
tion, however,  will  show  him  that  whatever  he 
sees,  knows,  and  feels  is  part  of  himself.  As 


PATRIOTISM.  221 

his  body  is  kept  living  by  the  constant  assimila- 
tion of  food  and  air,  so  his  mind  and  heart  are 
kept  alive  and  active  through  communion  with 
what  may  be  perceived  and  understood,  or  ad- 
mired and  loved.  The  ties  which  bind  us  to  earth 
and  heaven,  to  air  and  water,  the  sympathies 
which  unite  us  with  whatever  is  beautiful,  true,  or 
good,  the  attractions  which  draw  us  to  beings  like 
and  yet  unlike  ourselves,  are  but  forms  of  self- 
love.  We  find  and  love  in  what  is  not  ourselves 
that  which  we  need  to  round  and  complete  our 
lives.  The  desire  to  grow  toward  and  into  all 
things  is  the  divine  spark  in  our  nature,  the 
impulse  which  makes  us  yearn  for  more  know- 
ledge, more  love,  more  happiness,  more  posses- 
sions. We  tend  ultimately  to  identify  ourselves 
with  God  and  His  universe  and  the  objects  and 
persons  we  learn  to  know  and  love  are  the  step- 
ping-stones in  the  ascent  toward  the  divine  life. 
The  instinct  for  local  and  personal  attachments  is 
born  in  us ;  it  is  found  in  the  mere  animal,  —  the 
horse  knows  his  stall,  the  dog  loves  his  master. 
Our  fondness  for  things  and  persons  is  not  wholly 
determined  by  their  qualities.  The  cottage  of 
the  poor  is  cherished  more  than  the  palace  of  the 
rich ;  the  most  helpless  child  is  often  a  mother's 
darling.  Bleak  and  cheerless  Lapland  is  loved 
as  truly  as  Italy,  dowered  with  beauty's  fatal  gift. 
The  spot  where  our  young  years  were  passed, 


222  THINGS   OF   THE  MIND. 

as  in  a  dream,  the  persons  by  whom  we  were 
then  surrounded,  seem  fair  and  good  to  us. 
The  memory  of  them  is  intertwined  with  all  our 
thoughts ;  they  are  part  of  ourselves.  The  very 
sorrows  we  knew  with  them  are  sweeter  than 
the  joys  we  now  can  taste.  Our  souls  never  lose 
the  tinge  of  the  colors  with  which  they  were 
then  imbued.  We  bear  with  us  into  distant 
lands,  through  long  years,  the  memories  of  that 
dewy  dawn,  of  that  fresh  springtime  when  all 
things  seemed  created  anew  and  a  smile  of  God 
rested  upon  His  world.  With  the  love  of  home 
and  of  those  who  made  it  home,  the  love  of 
country  first  begins  to  stir  within  the  heart;  for 
our  country  is  and  remains  our  fatherland,  the 
land  where  we  knew  a  father's  and  a  mother's 
love.  This  is  the  meaning  of  the  Greek  word 
"  patriotism ;  "  it  is  the  love  of  the  fathers  ;  of 
their  thoughts  and  hopes ;  of  their  deeds  and 
aspirations.  It  is  therefore  something  far  higher 
and  deeper  than  a  mere  attachment  to  places, 
though  fair  and  pleasant  they  be.  Our  sympathy 
with  nature,  however,  is  very  real.  We  feel  a 
kinship  with  stars  and  flowers ;  we  are  uplifted 
by  mountains ;  we  are  awed  by  the  ocean ;  we 
are  fresh  and  happy  with  spring;  we  are  sober 
and  subdued  with  autumn  ;  and  this  general  feel- 
ing becomes  tenderer  and  more  human  when  it 
is  associated  with  what  is  dear  to  us  for  reasons 


PATRIOTISM.  223 

personal  to  ourselves.  In  this  way  the  scenery  in 
which  our  home  is  set,  by  which  our  country  is 
characterized,  touches  us  more  nearly,  awakens 
more  grateful  and  delightful  thoughts  than  aught 
we  can  behold  elsewhere.  If  we  are  moulded 
by  our  surroundings  we  also  help  to  create  them, 
and  objects  which  for  years  we  have  been  accus- 
tomed to  look  upon  day  by  day  have  for  us  a 
meaning  and  a  sacredness,  a  charm  and  a  beauty 
which  they  lose  when  viewed  by  the  indifferent 
eyes  of  strangers.  Thus  the  physical  features 
of  the  fatherland,  whether  noble  or  common, 
impress  the  imagination  and  color  the  souls  of 
the  children  ;  they  enter  into  our  patriotic  feel- 
ings, as  the  face,  the  voice,  the  gestures  of  one  we 
love  seem  to  become  part  of  our  love.  When 
the  German  remembers  the  Rhine,  with  its  vine- 
clad  hills  and  feudal  castles,  his  heart  thrills 
with  emotion  for  the  whole  German  land.  The 
Irishman  who  turns  to  Erin  feels  his  pulse  beat 
quicker  when  he  thinks  of  the  glories  of  Wicklow 
and  Killarney.  And  so  all  men  are  pleased 
with  the  natural  excellences  and  beauties  of  their 
country;  the  fertility  of  its  soil,  the  salubrity 
and  temperateness  of  its  climate,  its  high  moun- 
tains, its  deep  valleys,  its  mighty  rivers,  its  bays 
and  inlets,  its  islands  and  solemn  woods,  its  water- 
falls, casting  their  white  incense  to  heaven,  —  all 
help  to  make  it  precious  and  dear  ;  and  it  becomes 


224  THINGS  OF  THE  MIND. 

still  dearer  when  genius  or  heroism  has  thrown 
its  light  upon  nature's  charms.  Monuments 
like  the  Cathedral  of  Cologne,  or  Westminster 
Abbey,  or  St.  Peter's  in  Rome,  are  centres  of 
patriotic  feeling.  The  emigrant  to  far  lands 
thinks  of  them  with  a  sentiment  akin  to  that  of 
the  Israelite  in  captivity:  "By  the  waters  of 
Babylon  we  sat  down  and  wept,  when  we  re- 
membered thee,  O  Sion !  "  "  If  I  forget  thee, 
O  Jerusalem  !  let  my  right  hand  forget  her 
cunning."  The  ruins  of  what  our  forefathers 
built,  the  battlefields  whereon  they  shed  their 
blood  for  right  and  freedom,  the  graves  where 
their  bones  are  buried  make  sacred  the  land.  But 
these  local  attachments  and  associations,  sweet 
and  holy  though  they  are,  and  inseparable  from 
right  feeling  are  not  of  the  essence  of  patriotism  ; 
for  our  true  human  world  is  spiritual,  not  mate- 
rial ;  the  city  of  the  soul,  and  not  that  in  which 
the  body  tabernacles,  is  our  country. 

When  in  some  foreign  land  we  hear  the  sacred 
name  spoken,  in  the  old  familiar  mother-tongue, 
and  our  pulse  quickens,  and  our  eye  brightens, 
and  our  bosom  heaves,  and  the  speaker  —  whom 
perchance  we  have  never  seen  before  —  seems 
to  be  our  brother,  our  emotion  is  caused  by 
something  higher  and  purer  than  local  attach- 
ments and  memories.  We  live  in  the  spirit  or 
not  at  all ;  and  the  material  things  we  possess 


PATRIOTISM.  225 

or  strive  for  seem  good  to  us  because  we  believe 
they  are  serviceable  to  the  higher  life  of  thought 
and  love.  A  sentiment  in  common,  a  deep,  far 
pervading  feeling  that  animates  a  collective  body 
as  with  one  soul,  is  what  makes  a  national  con- 
sciousness. Fertile  fields  may  be  made  waste, 
cities  desolate,  rivers  dry ;  the  ruins  of  the  homes 
of  our  youth  may  be  trodden  by  the  hoofs  of 
beasts,  friends  may  turn  from  us,  and  civil  strife 
rend  the  land,  but  the  love  of  country  still  burns 
with  its  steady,  inextinguishable  glow  within 
our  hearts.  We  love  the  fatherland,  not  alone 
or  chiefly  for  the  food  it  gives,  the  property  it 
protects,  the  security  it  provides ;  we  love  it 
above  all  for  the  richer,  freer,  nobler  human 
life  which  it  makes  possible:  not  so  much  for 
its  high  mountains,  its  wide-spreading  plains, 
its  broad  rivers,  its  thundering  cataracts,  its 
pleasant  and  bracing  air,  as  for  the  noble 
freedom,  the  generous  love,  the  great  thoughts 
which  enter  into  and  determine  the  national 
spirit  and  character.  Our  country  is  the  symbol 
of  all  that  is  most  priceless  on  earth,  —  liberty, 
truth,  devotion,  loyalty.  Its  name  is  intertwined 
with  the  memories,  hopes,  loves,  and  aspirations 
of  all  our  life ;  it  is  as  dear  to  us  as  that  of  our 
mother,  as  full  of  sweet  suggestiveness  as  that  of 
home,  as  near  to  our  hearts  as  the  names  of  the 
friends  we  most  love.  At  its  invocation  our  whole 
15 


226  THINGS  OF  THE  MIND. 

nature  changes :  if  timid,  we  become  brave  ;  if 
hard,  sympathetic ;  if  selfish,  generous.  We 
turn  from  wealth  and  pleasant  company  and  the 
most  cherished  pursuits  if  that  sacred  name 
ring  out  in  the  bugle  call,  and,  throwing  all  things 
away,  we  rush  forward  to  defy  danger  and  death 
that  we  may  save  our  country's  honor  and  inde- 
pendence. "It  is  a  pleasant  and  a  glorious  thing," 
says  Horace,  "  to  die  for  one's  country; "  and  no 
line  of  ancient  poetry  has  evoked  a  more  uni- 
versal response.  Whatever  else  may  change  or 
wholly  pass  away,  patriotism  is  as  imperishable 
as  religion,  as  immortal  as  love ;  for  to  all  well- 
born hearts  the  native  land  is  forever  dear, 
whether  strong  and  free  or  helpless  and  in  chains. 
The  memory  of  its  glories  and  triumphs  descends 
through  a  hundred  generations,  and  when  the 
people  itself  perishes,  the  deeds  of  its  heroes 
become  the  property  of  the  whole  race  of  man. 
Through  a  thousand  years  of  suffering  and  sor- 
row, of  tyranny  and  oppression,  the  heavenly 
passion  still  lives,  and  from  out  the  gloom,  the 
lovers  of  their  country  look  to  God,  waiting  in 
hope,  till  the  dawn  of  a  better  day  shall  break, 
bringing  promise  of  freedom  and  new  life. 

What  land,  what  people,  has  the  sun  ever  illu- 
mined more  worthy  of  the  heart's  deep  affection 
than  our  own?  Here,  where  Nature,  who  never 
hastens  and  never  tires,  has  stored,  through 


PATRIOTISM.  227 

countless  ages,  whatever  may  be  serviceable  to 
man,  divine  Providence  has  given  us  a  country 
as  large  as  all  Europe,  with  a  soil  more  fertile, 
and  a  climate  more  invigorating.  We  have  come 
into  possession  of  it,  not  as  ignorant  and  lawless 
barbarians,  but  as  civilized  men,  with  conscious 
purposes,  with  high  ideals,  the  inheritors  of  all 
the  knowledge  and  wisdom  of  the  past,  and  hav- 
ing in  our  hands  whatever  implements  and  weap- 
ons human  skill  has  invented  to  strengthen  and 
enlarge  the  power  of  man.  Across  the  great 
ocean  our  ancestors  bore  the  blessings  of  Chris- 
tian civilization,  leaving  behind  them  the  narrow- 
ness and  hatreds,  the  political  and  social  wrongs 
with  which  it  had  become  associated.  Never 
did  a  continent  pass  under  the  control  of  a  new 
race  with  so  little  injustice,  so  little  violence  and 
cruelty  ;  never  were  states  founded  by  men  more 
true-hearted,  honest,  and  brave ;  never  were  great 
and  memorable  triumphs  gained  by  fairer  means; 
never  was  a  commonwealth  made  to  rest  on  broad- 
er or  more  humane  principles. 

It  is  the  planting  of  the  American  colonies 
which  makes  the  discovery  of  Columbus  the 
opening  of  a  new  era  in  the  history  of  man- 
kind. Here  the  Christian  people  saw  the  light 
dawn  toward  which  through  a  thousand  years 
of  darkness  and  struggle  they  had  been  grop- 
ing. Here  God's  infinite  goodness  revealed 


228  THINGS  OF   THE  MIND. 

itself,  offering  opportunities  for  freer  and  nobler 
life  to  all  alike,  without  distinction  of  race  or  creed 
or  sex,  even  as  upon  all  His  sun  shines  and  His 
rain  falls.  The  patriots  who  made  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence,  the  statesmen  and  warriors 
who  led  the  people  through  the  long  and  doubt- 
ful struggle  of  the  Revolution,  felt  that  they  were 
building  better  than  they  knew.  Never  were 
heroes  more  conscious  that  the  cause  they  bat- 
tled for  was  God's  and  all  men's.  In  their  words, 
and  in  their  deeds  there  breathes  a  lofty  and 
unselfish  spirit,  which,  to  the  end  of  time,  shall 
thrill  every  true  and  generous  heart.  Their 
work  has  prospered  beyond  the  utmost  vision  of 
seers,  beyond  the  fondest  dreams  of  poets.  The 
little  republic  they  founded  has  grown,  in  a  cen- 
tury, to  be  the  strongest,  the  most  progressive, 
the  most  enlightened,  and  the  most  firmly  estab- 
lished civil  power  in  the  world.  In  virtue  of  its 
constitutional  vitality  and  assimilative  force,  it 
has  spread  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific,  from 
the  Canadian  border  to  the  everglades  of  Florida. 
Decade  after  decade  it  has  sent  farther  and  far- 
ther west  colonists  who,  as  by  a  kind  of  instinct, 
became  the  founders  of  prosperous  states.  The 
great  Civil  War,  which  threatened  to  disrupt  it,  but 
purified  its  constitution  and  opened  to  it  a  larger 
and  less  impeded  career.  In  the  old  world  who- 
ever is  straitened  or  oppressed,  whoever  yearns 


PATRIOTISM.  229 

for  richer  life  and  wider  opportunities,  turns  with 
longing  to  America.  However  much  we  may 
lack,  as  individuals,  the  culture  and  breeding,  the 
repose  and  dignity  of  manner  which  distinguish 
the  true  gentleman  or  the  perfect  lady,  as  a 
people  we  are  the  most  attractive ;  and  the  charm 
of  our  national  life  lies  not  so  much  in  our  free- 
dom, or  in  anything  we  have  already  accom- 
plished, as  in  the  promise  it  gives  of  nobler  things. 
Here  the  largest  thought  and  the  widest  love 
which  have  ever  been  brought  to  bear  upon  the 
polities  of  men  are  at  work  to  mould  the  coming 
race.  Here  is  liberty ;  here  is  good  will ;  here 
is  willingness ;  here  is  invitation  to  all ;  here 
is  opportunity,  beckoning  to  every  faculty  of  the 
human  soul.  "  Never,"  says  Emerson,  "  never 
country  had  such  a  fortune,  as  men  call  fortune, 
as  this,  in  its  geography,  its  history,  and  in  its 
majestic  possibilities."  But  let  not  our  patriotism 
run  to  foolish  vanity;  let  us  not  imagine  because 
our  country  is  great  we  also  are  great;  let  us 
rather  dread  lest  in  a  noble  land  we  ourselves  be 
found  ignorant  and  vulgar.  The  wise  are  never 
boastful,  and  they  who  best  understand  the  price- 
less worth  of  America  feel  how  far  above  them 
is  the  ideal  of  public  and  private  virtue  of  which 
America  is  the  symbol.  He  is  the  truest  patriot 
who  strives  day  by  day  to  make  himself  worthy 
of  such  a  country,  turning  away  from  no  labor, 


230  THINGS  OF   THE   MIND. 

no  hardship,  no  self-denial,  which  may  help  him 
to  become  an  honest,  honorable,  enlightened,  and 
religious  man.  Who  is  there  among  us  who 
would  not  be  willing  to  die  for  his  country? 
Let  us  learn  that  to  live  for  it  is  a  yet  higher 
and  more  useful  thing ;  that  the  task  it  sets  each 
one  of  us  is  not  in  any  way  beneath  a  hero's 
courage,  a  philosopher's  insight,  or  a  poet's  love. 
Weath  and  numbers  we  have,  and  all  the  strength 
which  material  civilization  can  give.  What  we 
lack  is  a  new  man  to  represent  fitly  this  new 
world.  Great  things  must  be  balanced  by  great 
characters,  or  matter  will  prevail  over  spirit,  and 
the  soul  become  inferior  to  its  setting.  "  It  is 
certain,"  says  Emerson  again,  "  that  our  civiliza- 
tion is  yet  incomplete ;  it  has  not  ended  nor 
given  sign  of  ending  in  a  hero.  It  is  a  wild 
democracy, —  the  riot  of  mediocrities,  dishones- 
ties, and  fudges.'* 

The  special  vice  of  the  American  is  the  breath- 
less haste  with  which  he  works  for  success,  which 
he  generally  takes  to  mean  money.  Whatever 
is  restful,  as  reflection  and  meditation,  gives  him 
qualms  of  conscience ;  he  is  ashamed  to  be  at 
leisure.  He  thinks,  watch  in  hand,  as  he  eats, 
with  his  eye  on  the  daily  market- report.  He 
seems  always  afraid  lest  he  forget  or  neglect 
something,  and  so  miss  an  opportunity  to 
gain  a  dollar.  This  workingman's  haste,  this 


PATRIOTISM.  231 

alertness  for  a  chance  to  turn  a  penny,  is 
fatal  to  distinction  of  thought  and  behavior; 
it  destroys  the  sense  for  form,  for  proportion, 
and  grace.  Hence  this  type  of  American, 
in  all  the  relations  of  life,  is  quick,  sharp,  and 
abrupt.  In  his  intercourse  with  friends  and 
relations,  with  women  and  children,  he  is  pre- 
occupied by  thoughts  of  business,  and  seems 
to  say:  "  Appreciate  my  politeness,  for  time  is 
money."  His  natural  inclination  is  to  marry  a 
wife  with  as  little  ceremony  as  he  buys  a  horse. 
Joyful  occasions  are  almost  as  unwelcome  to  him 
as  the  sad,  for  both  alike  are  interruptions  of 
business.  If  he  is  poor  he  works  with  the 
hope  of  becoming  rich;  if  he  is  rich  he  works 
from  dread  of  poverty.  He  cannot  take  recre- 
ation without  apology,  as  though  he  should 
say,  "  I  beg  pardon,  but  my  health  or  my 
wife's  requires  this  of  me.  "  He  writes  a  letter  in 
the  style  of  a  telegram,  and  would  prefer  to  talk 
only  through  a  telephone  from  £ear  of  being  but- 
ton-holed. He  looks  forward  to  the  time  when 
he  shall  travel  a  hundred  instead  of  fifty  miles 
an  hour;  and  in  his  rapid  journeys  he  is  all  the 
while  thinking  or  talking  of  business  or  politics, 
which  for  him  is  mainly  a  question  of  finance. 
The  men  in  whom  he  takes  interest  are  money 
men  and  politicians.  In  his  spare  moments  he 
reads  the  newspapers,  which  are  filled  with 


232  THINGS  OF   THE  MIND. 

whatever  concerns  trade  and  material  progress, 
interspersed  with  accounts  of  all  kinds  of  crime. 
His  idea  of  pleasure  is  sport.  He  admires  a  horse 
more  for  the  price  it  brings  than  for  beauty  and 
grace;  a  pugilist  more  for  the  money  than  the 
victory  he  wins.  He  measures  all. things  by  the 
same  standard.  A  book,  a  preacher,  a  play,  like 
a  mine  or  a  railway,  are  worth  what  they  will 
sell  for  in  the  market.  What  is  dear  is  fine,  and 
he  will  even  submit  to  all  sorts  of  discomfort  if 
it  is  expensive.  A  poet  is  an  idle,  foolish  being, 
for  poetry,  unless  some  freak  of  fashion  give  it 
value,  is  unsalable.  Dancing  is  a  good  enough 
pursuit,  if  one  knows  how  to  make  it  lucrative. 
He  easily  breaks  forth  into  abuse  of  the  very 
rich,  for  it  is  natural  to  abuse  one's  more  suc- 
cessful rivals. 

The  gospel  of  work  and  utility  has  been 
preached  to  us  and  imposed  on  us,  until  we  all 
have  become  or  are  in  danger  of  becoming  the 
drudges  and  victims  of  the  uneasy  and  insatiable 
demon  of  greed.  The  ideal  is  the  possession  of 
more  and  more,  and  in  striving  for  this  we  for- 
get and  lose  ourselves, —  lose  even  the  power  to 
enjoy  the  wealth  for  which  we  sacrificed  all  that 
makes  life  good  and  pleasant.  To  add  to  the 
trouble,  we  seem  no  longer  to  be  free.  We  lack 
self-control,  and  are  borne  onward  by  this  mate- 
rial movement,  as  the  crest  is  carried  by  the 


PATRIOTISM.  233 

wave.  We  have  lost  relish  for  a  life  which  is 
simple,  pure,  moderate,  and  healthful.  We  are 
the  victims  of  an  environment,  and  to  survive  at 
all,  we  feel  we  must  survive  as  money-getters. 
That  the  majority  now  believe  in  this  Mammon- 
worship  is  no  proof  that  it  is  not  a  degrading 
and  idolatrous  worship.  "  The  majority  are 
bad,"  said  one  of  the  wise  men  of  Greece ;  we 
at  least  may  say  that  they  are  unthinking  and 
heedless  of  the  best.  They  need  the  guidance 
and  the  strength  which  are  found  in  the  wisdom 
and  example  of  the  few;  but  we  hitch  our  most 
gifted  men  to  the  drays  of  commerce  and  the 
machinery  of  manufacture,  where  they  are  goaded 
on,  and  driven  to  death  by  the  tyranny  of  com- 
petition. They  should  be  treated  like  coursers, 
which  for  the  most  part  are  idle,  nursing  the 
strength  that  renders  them  capable  of  memora- 
ble deeds.  We  boast  of  our  industrial  captains, 
who  stand  at  the  head  of  great  material  enter- 
prises, not  perceiving  that  their  work,  like  that 
of  the  unhappy  beings  they  employ,  prevents 
them  from  becoming  men;  for,  however  many 
millions  of  money  they  may  have,  they  have  low 
thoughts  and  feeble  faith  and  love.  If  we  love 
our  country,  let  us  not  be  afraid  to  speak  even 
unpleasant  truth  in  this  age  when  it  has  grown 
to  be  the  fashion  to  lie  to  the  people,  as  formerly 
men  lied  to  kings. 


234  THINGS   OF   THE   MIND. 

There  is  no  better  measure  of  the  progress  of 
an  individual  than  the  degree  of  his  ability  to 
stand  alone,  in  thought  and  action,  undisturbed 
by  the  adverse  opinions  and  judgments  of  his 
fellow-men.  He  who  leads  his  own  life  is  a  real, 
not  an  artificial,  man.  Let  us  believe  in  the 
worth  of  character,  and  while  we  strive  to  up- 
build our  own,  let  us  also  seek  to  spread  this 
faith,  which  is  fundamental  for  all  who  would 
uphold  popular  government.  When  the  people 
are  a  herd  they  are  easily  swayed  and  ruled  by 
one  man;  when  they  are  individualized,  the 
dominion  of  one  is  not  possible.  Let  us  hold 
and  teach  that  better  than  millions  of  money  or 
cattle,  is  a  brave  heart,  a  hopeful  temper,  an 
enlightened  mind,  a  cheerful  and  appreciative 
soul,  content  in  quiet  virtue,  and  able  to  take 
delight  in  familiar  things  and  in  the  common 
blessings  which  God  sends  to  all. 

Let  us  dread  whatever  is  hard  or  exaggerated 
or  vulgar;  whatever  shows  lack  of  delicacy  of 
thought  or  purity  of  conduct;  whatever  springs 
from  a  spirit  of  false  audacity  or  foolish  boast- 
fulness.  Let  our  patriotism  be  a  sort  of  religion, 
urging  us  to  elevation,  seriousness,  and  chastity 
of  thought  and  desire ;  for,  after  all,  our  confi- 
dence that  popular  government  is  the  best  rests 
on  faith,  not  on  knowledge.  Let  us  make  our- 
selves wise  and  helpful,  strong  and  self-contained, 


PATRIOTISM.  235 

whether  we  are  happy  or  unhappy.  What  gives 
pleasure  is  of  little  moment;  what  gives  power 
and  wisdom  is  all-important.  Let  us  make  true 
Emerson's  prophecy :  "Trade  and  government 
will  not  alone  be  the  favored  aims,  but  every 
useful,  every  elegant  art,  every  exercise  of  imagi- 
nation, the  height  of  reason,  the  noblest  affection, 
the  purest  religion  will  find  their  home  in  our 
institutions,  and  write  our  laws  for  the  benefit 
of  men." 


THE  END. 


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OCT  16    1933 

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DEC  20  1939 

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